Theme Week Venezuela

21 May 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Cumaná © panoramio.com - Guillermo Esteves/cc-by-3.0

Cumaná © panoramio.com – Guillermo Esteves/cc-by-3.0

Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal republic on the northern coast of South America, bordered by Colombia on the west, Brazil on the south, Guyana on the east, the Dutch Lesser Antilles to the north and Trinidad and Tobago to the north-east. Venezuela covers 916,445 km² (353,841 sq mi) and has over 31 million people. The country has extremely high biodiversity and is ranked 7th in the world’s list of nations with the most number of species. There are habitats ranging from the Andes Mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rain-forest in the south via extensive llanos plains, the Caribbean coast and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.   read more…

San Salvador Island in the Bahamas

9 March 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

© bahamas.com

© bahamas.com

San Salvador Island (namend after John Watling as Watlings Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of the Bahamas. It is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus‘ first expedition to the New World, San Salvador Island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12 October 1492; he named it San Salvador after Christ the Saviour. Columbus’ records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who called their island Guanahani, were “sweet and gentle”.   read more…

Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic

17 February 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

© flickr.com - Ben Kucinski/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Ben Kucinski/cc-by-2.0

Punta Cana is a resort town within the Punta Cana-Bávaro-Veron-Macao municipal district, in the municipality of Higüey, in La Altagracia Province, the easternmost province of the Dominican Republic. The area has beaches and balnearios which face both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and it has been a popular tourist destination.   read more…

Coro in Venezuela

14 February 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

Iglesia de San Francisco © flickr.com - Grégory David Escobar Fernández/cc-by-2.0

Iglesia de San Francisco © flickr.com – Grégory David Escobar Fernández/cc-by-2.0

Coro is the capital of Falcón State and the oldest city in the west of Venezuela. It was founded on July 26, 1527 by Juan de Ampíes as Santa Ana de Coro. It is established at the south of the Paraguaná Peninsula in a coastal plain, flanked by the Médanos de Coro National Park to the north and the sierra de Coro to the south, at a few kilometers from its port (La Vela de Coro) in the Caribbean Sea at a point equidistant between the Ensenada de La Vela and Golfete de Coro. Thanks to the city’s history, culture and its well-preserved Colonial architecture, “Coro and its port La Vela” was designated in 1993 as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, thus becoming the first site in Venezuela to be vested with this title. Since 2005 it is on the UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.   read more…

Theme Week Panama – Colón

27 January 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Cruise ship terminal Colon 2000 and Colon Free Trade Zone © flickr.com - Roger Wollstadt/cc-by-sa-2.0

Cruise ship terminal Colon 2000 and Colon Free Trade Zone © flickr.com – Roger Wollstadt/cc-by-sa-2.0

Colón is a city and sea port beside the Caribbean Sea, lying near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. It is the capital of the Colón Province and has traditionally been known as Panama’s second city. Originally, it was located entirely on Manzanillo Island, surrounded by Limon Bay, Manzanillo Bay and the Folks River, but, since the disestablishment of the Panama Canal Zone, the city’s limits have been redefined to include Fort Gulick, a former U.S. Army base, as well the former Canal Zone towns of Cristobal, Margarita and Coco Solo.   read more…

Theme Week Panama

22 January 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  16 minutes

Panama City © Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz/cc-by-sa-3.0

Panama City © Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz/cc-by-sa-3.0

Panama, officially called the Republic of Panama, is a country in Central America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia in South America to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country’s 4 million people. Panama was inhabited by several indigenous tribes prior to settlement by the Spanish in the 16th century. Panama broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela named the Republic of Gran Colombia. When Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined, eventually becoming the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977 an agreement was signed for the transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on December 31, 1999.   read more…

Theme Week Cuba – Varadero

30 April 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

La Casa de Al, Al Capone's warhouse during prohibition, today a restaurant © Laslovarga/cc-by-sa-4.0

La Casa de Al, Al Capone’s warhouse during prohibition, today a restaurant © Laslovarga/cc-by-sa-4.0

Varadero is a resort town in the province of Matanzas, and one of the largest resort areas in the Caribbean. The first mention of Varadero was in 1555. The place was first used as a dry dock (Spanish: varadero) and the salt mines of the peninsula (closed in 1961) supplied most of the Spanish Latin America Fleet since 1587. However, the foundation date of Varadero as city was only on December 5, 1887, when ten families from the city of Cárdenas obtained a permission to build their vacation homes between today’s 42nd and 48th Street. Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport, situated west of the peninsula, is Varadero’s airport. It is the second-most-important airport of the island after José Martí International Airport in Havana, and serves international and domestic flights.   read more…

Theme Week Cuba – Santiago de Cuba

29 April 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  9 minutes

Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Asunción © Aquarius-BRE

Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Asunción © Aquarius-BRE

Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some 870 km (540 mi) south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana. Historically Santiago de Cuba has long been the second most important city on the island after Havana, and still remains the second largest. It is on a bay connected to the Caribbean Sea and is an important sea port. The city of Santiago de Cuba has a population of about 506,000 people. The internatonal airport Antonio Maceo Airport is located in the city. The local citadel of San Pedro de la Roca is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as “the most complete, best-preserved example of Spanish-American military architecture, based on Italian and Renaissance design principles”. The Baconao Park was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Biosphere Reserve List in 1987.   read more…

Theme Week Cuba – Cienfuegos

28 April 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Marti Park and City Hall © Wilder Mendez

Marti Park and City Hall © Wilder Mendez

Cienfuegos, capital of Cienfuegos Province, is a city on the southern coast of Cuba. It is located about 250 km (160 mi) from Havana and has a population of 172,000. The city is dubbed La Perla del Sur (Pearl of the South). In 2005, UNESCO inscribed the Urban Historic Centre of Cienfuegos on the World Heritage List, citing Cienfuegos as the best extant example of early 19th century Spanish Enlightenment implementation in urban planning.   read more…

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