Saturday reflections

This one has been sitting in the folder for a while—the no longer used El Ferdan Railway bridge in the Suez Canal.

Penguin went a-courtin'

If you look closely at this gentoo in Mikkelsen Harbor you can see that he's carrying one of the very important courtship pebbles in his beak.

Whale bones

There were whale bones all over the beach at Mikkelson Harbor, along with the ruins of a wooden boat.

Back in Antarctica

Looking down on the landing site in Mikkelsen Harbor. This picture gives a sense of scale that I wasn't always able to capture—how small I sometimes felt, with the mountains and glaciers just looming above us.

Sunday bird blogging

A pair of kelp geese on the shore in Puerto Williams, before we set sail for South Georgia.

Saturday reflections

I've been taking a lot of buses again, something I got out of the habit of doing during the pandemic. But with school and tutoring on the Upper East Side, and my knee no longer up to walking as many miles as I used to, it's either buses or Uber, and buses are a lot cheaper.

A view from above

I love seeing mountains from the air, and the Andes always seem particularly photogenic. This was taken on the flight between Rio and Santiago.

The umbrellas of Copacabana

Urban poetry

Christmas Day in Rio. The highway along Copacabana Beach was closed to cars, but busy with bikes and scooters.

And almost every single person was on their phone while they were biking or scooting along. I've never seen that anywhere else; lots of New Yorkers are glued to their phones while they walk, but I've never seen anyone looking at their phone while they're biking. It definitely wouldn't be great for your life expectancy here.

I sold my car not long ago, and while I occasionally miss the idea of it, I really do not miss the stress of driving in Manhattan, where two eyes and a few mirrors aren't nearly enough to keep track of all of the chaos around you.

Cascatinha Taunay

This waterfall is in Tijuca National Park, an urban park in the mountains in and around Rio. It's named for Nícolas-Antoine Taunay, a French artist who built his house on the edge of the waterfall.

More tropical foliage

I do love the colossal leaves in the tropics; I remember seeing some in Costa Rica that were taller than I am. And there was bamboo everywhere.

Jardim Botânico

The botanical gardens were part of my Christmas Eve tour in Rio. They were closing early for the holiday, so our visit was a blur of orchids, bamboo and a lot of tropical foliage.