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SKP Guy

@skpguy.bsky.social

Writer, Geographer, Traveller. Human human being

2,280 Followers  |  1,543 Following  |  779 Posts  |  Joined: 16.11.2024  |  1.852

Latest posts by skpguy.bsky.social on Bluesky

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The Night They Bombed Uvira – Down in to the Rift The flight over to Burundi was incredible.  Leaving the Athi Plains behind, we crossed the Masai Mara and out over a huge peninsula that teased out over southern Lake Victoria.  Dotted with smalle…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/t...

04.08.2025 06:07 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – A touristy example of Basotho life A few kilometres further on we turned off the main road and visited the Basotho Cultural Village.  While a highly sanitized representation of a Basotho settlement, it offers an insight into the ric…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/t...

04.08.2025 06:07 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Past the Golden Gate Many small towns in southern Africa are fortuitously off the main road – to let the huge trucks make their noisy gear changes and brakings beyond the residential area.  We turned off the main…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/21/t...

03.08.2025 15:36 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Night They Bombed Uvira – Taking the path less travelled A perfect setting for a war – a long valley guarded by two massive walls – escarpments three thousand feet high.  At one end a lake blocks the valley. To the north, the valley is flat with a great …

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/t...

03.08.2025 15:36 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Goodbye to the Valley If you want to read the first post, click here. We had one more full day in the valley, and spent it on the northern fringes of Chirisa Safari Area.  We marked down how much more the cultivation h…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/b...

03.08.2025 06:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – up into the hills We detoured a couple of times off the main road taking us up amongst the buttresses and higher elevations.  The air clarity meant we saw for miles.  We distinguished areas of bare ground, some of w…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/20/4...

03.08.2025 06:38 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – New Country, New Landscape I say that these parts of Lesotho and South Africa are the same terrain, but it was incredible how different the landscape looked once we crossed over.  In Lesotho every piece of flat land appears …

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/t...

02.08.2025 19:28 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Edmore tells his tales I was still convinced that the track between Chirisa and Chizarira was only just through the bushes.  It said so on the map and the GPS was showing me that we were getting closer.  My fear was tha…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/b...

02.08.2025 19:28 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Working alongside the wildlife The trip became more and more an adventure as we headed west and up to the high plateau on which the main part of the part was situated.  We saw a few waterbuck and impala but very little else.  T…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/b...

02.08.2025 06:17 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Land borders We turned off the main road in Butha Buthe as we needed to cross the border in to South Africa.  Still a well maintained road it dropped gradually towards the Mohokare River. I rarely come across m…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/t...

02.08.2025 06:17 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Village Life and the “not the capital” cities We passed through village after village where life was going on – funny how so often in African villages the routines never seem to change. If you didn’t consult your calendar, you woul…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/4...

01.08.2025 14:55 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – The joys of camping and driving in the bush I was tired of the sadza porridge that was being served up, especially as we had brought along all these English style goodies from the supermarket in Avondale.  So I showed Second a whole load of…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/b...

01.08.2025 14:54 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Second and the work We intended to get a second guide, who could cook and act as camp guard, and once the tents were up, I thought we should go find him.  Edmore clambered into the now empty Judith (things like the wa…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/b...

01.08.2025 06:04 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – On the main road through Lesotho So to date, apart from a few visits around Maseru’s hotels and restaurants, including a rather dodgy Chinese restaurant near the bypass, that had been my experience of Lesotho.  So I was look…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/t...

01.08.2025 06:04 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – King Moshoeshoe’s last resting place Our other excursion outside of town on that first visit was a morning drive to a famous tourist site, a few miles north east of Maseru.  Lesotho is a monarchy, although the legacy and continuity ha…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/t...

31.07.2025 14:37 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Edmore and the Camp We wound our way around many communities and farms and another missing link in our organisation glared out of us – what happened if we did not find Edmore?  How could we get around, how could we g…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/b...

31.07.2025 14:37 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – Solving the Mystery of Judith We bedded down early that night, there being little else to do.  And I wanted an early start in the morning.  We had to get the tyre fixed, and fill the canisters with petrol.  In the morning we c…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/b...

31.07.2025 05:56 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Heading to Roma We were there first time in the winter, as the temperature differences we were experience might have hinted at.  Spring was in the air though, and I saw trees with a delicate pink blossom in so man…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/t...

31.07.2025 05:56 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Sizing up Maseru I was looking forward to this as my two previous trips had given me precious few opportunities to explore the countryside. On my first trip I had managed to get to Roma for a meeting.  Situated abo…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/t...

30.07.2025 13:24 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – KABOOM!!!! Anyhow, we couldn’t worry too much about that, we were on our way, we had jobs to do and we had to get moving or else we would not make Gokwe by nightfall.  It was already after four o’clock by th…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/b...

30.07.2025 13:23 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Busi Valley – From Harare to the bush again Knowledge had re-assured me that the people in Busi Valley knew we were coming to do five days field work.  My plan was to drive down to Gokwe, a little town in the Midlands of Zimbabwe, stay at th…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/8...

30.07.2025 05:40 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Becky The other times I was not in a hotel, but was invited to stay with one of the project officers.  Becky Banton had been working in Lesotho when I first visited, but had not been recruited by Senteba…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/12/t...

30.07.2025 05:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – What a temperature range! I’d travelled to do some volunteering with a colleague.  I was invited back a while later under my own company to do more work, and a third trip occurred later on.  Based on the MapAction exp…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/t...

29.07.2025 15:38 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Port Run – Festival, Freeloading and Frazzling To visit the first post for The Port Run click here. The next to last night in Porto was their big annual festival  – celebrating the city’s patron saint, St John.  It seemed that the main i…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/t...

29.07.2025 15:38 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Port Run – Heading back to Porto The point has probably been overstressed, but from that visit to Taylors in the mountains, we had a wonderful time.  The bus ride back to Lamego, the next day where we did our individual projects,…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/t...

29.07.2025 06:54 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Orphans and HIV HIV/AIDS has ravaged the population in Lesotho.  Migrant workers heading to Johannesburg and the mining communities would become highly promiscuous and have unprotected sex, and the virus came back…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/t...

29.07.2025 06:54 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Highest Country in the World – Welcome to Lesotho Everyone tries to make out they are the biggest, the tallest, the highest, the smallest, the greatest.  I get tired of so many “100 places you must visit before you die” .  So I tend to…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/t...

28.07.2025 15:15 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Port Run – Moulding of the family As for our lecturers, we felt at the start that we had been short changed.  Our original partnership was to have been Ian Simmons, an eminent biogeographer and ecologist, a wonderful and provoking…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/t...

28.07.2025 15:15 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Port Run – Growing the grapes; Living with your colleagues But the finest part of the whole time in Portugal was the prequel to the port story.  This was the day that we went right up into the interior to the Quinta Vargelles, the jewel in the crown of th…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/t...

28.07.2025 05:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Walking the Beaches -Not a tourist trail….. We inadvertently sent some of the world of La Gaullette into the sheltered world of the Mauritian tourist.  We completed the walk at a long concrete jetty near Case Noyale and caught a local bus ba…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/4...

28.07.2025 05:38 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

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