Quirky places

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Why go?
Where do you start?
Weather
What are we taking?
The send-off
Quirky places

Quirky places

There are some places that just capture your imagination, whether it's an isolated dot on a map, a place with a romantic or quirky name, somewhere so unheard-of until you found it by coincidence, etc. So here is a list of some of those places. In the wired world it doesn't take long to find out a bit more about these oddities - see the Links section for more.

Cabinda

One of those places that makes you angry at the power large US oil corporations wield over the developing world (Chevron in this case). This little handkerchief of a country has a rather uncertain status. It used to be a part of Portuguese Angola during the colonial days but my maps list it as a country in its own right. It lies on the west African coast just north of the mouth of the Congo river. Check out the country's web site, www.cabinda.net

Cochabamba

Apparently just a busy and rather unendearing large Bolivian city, but the name is so evocative of all that Latin & Central America represents (in our imagination at least). "Cochabamba". It just says fiestas, lazy Latin American days, banana republic, Mexicans in ponchos and over-sized sombreros sleeping off the tequila, etc.

Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk

Mysterious, secretive and apparently a geological wonderland as the peninsula is actually on a fault line and has lots of volcanoes. Used to have secret Soviet military bases, etc. Also Michael Palin's first stop on his Full Circle journey.

Kerguelen

If, like us, you love poring over maps, you may have come across this isolated island in the southern half of the Indian Ocean, or rather the "Southern Ocean" as it seems to be called these days. The only other way you would know about this place is if you are a round-the-world yachtsman who had to stop off for emergency repairs. We did find an excellent site about Kerguelen once but can't remember the URL. Just do a search on Kerguelen in Google.

Rockall

Check out the "local" rag, the Rockall Times, www.therockalltimes.co.uk. The motto: "There's f*ck-all on Rockall!"

Uranium City

Somewhere in northern Canada. What a name.

The Four Coloured Seas

Sail on the Four Coloured Seas (White Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea and Yellow Sea). Strangely enough there is no Green Sea or Blue Sea, which I find puzzling.

Prev | Up

Top

Visitors:
Home \| Info \| Blog \| Travel \| Pictures \| Site map \| Search \| Guestbook	Copyright © 2001-2007 Stefan and Vanessa Aalten-Voogd