The Russian Federation : Not just the Eurovision

Yesterday morning I found my first geocache in Moscow, just before flying back home. And in the evening I watched the Eurovision song contest with some friends and the Russian Federation won. Looks like it was my Russian day yesterday !

This country is moving very fast. I have been there several times and although there is a lot of talk in the press about India and China growing fast, Russia is showing incredible dynamism and growth. I have only seen Moscow so far, and its terrible traffic jams can be irritating, but overall I like the atmosphere and the sense of energy and pride the people are showing. How things have changed in just 10 years.

I went on a short walk last Friday with a colleague, and the Kremlin and the Red square are simply magnificent. I really like St Basil's cathedral with is colorful domes. It looks like it is coming from a fairy tale


On Saturday morning I had to fly back to Brussels, but before I did I woke up early and went to find my first geocache in Moscow. A quick look at Google Maps showed that there was a geocache just 2.5 km from my hotel : the Novodevichy convent cache. It was raining and the walking was not ideal, but obviously because of the rain there were very few people in the streets of Moscow, and even fewer around the parks of the Novodevichy convent. I took a walk around the place, and it is an interesting area full of churches, cemeteries and green parks. Worth an in-depth visit when I visit the country again. The cache was easy to find and I left one of my geocoins in the cache. I also picked up the two geocoins that were in the cache and brought them back to Belgium.

This was the 35th country where I found a geocache.

Milestone achieved : 500 caches found

Well it has finally happened. Although I am not trying to break records and spend my entire life finding geocaches, I discovered my 500th cache yesterday. I found it while I was participating in the 'Sir Emile' geocaching event near Cerfontaine in Southern Belgium. The event was fabulous, with great caches near the lakes created by the river dam of the 'Eau d'Heure river'. Last time I visited this site was 15 years ago, and the changes are obvious. You can now do canoeing, sailing and even scuba diving in the lakes

It is a nice and peaceful place, and the caches were well hidden in the woods and near the lakes. Since the dam and the lakes are used to regulate electricity production, the water level can change suddenly and actually one of the caches ended up drowning under 1.5meter of water (that's around 5 feet). But luckily, my number 500 was not under water. It took me 2 and a half years to get there. let' s see how long it takes to find the next 500....

And here is the 500th find, recorded for eternity. It was a classic ammo box, very close to the water edge

Geocoins around the Planet ? Yes, they do travel !

A while ago, I received pictures from Peter in Bremen, Germany, who took some of my geocoins on a trip to the country they represented. Here are the pictures :

This is the one from Australia, with the Sydney opera in the background

And this is the Singapore coin, with a Singaporean cargo in the harbor

Thanks for those, Peter !

And if you have other pictures of my coins in their 'natural' home, send them and I will publish them here !

Finally, check my website http://www.ellandel.com/ if you want to see what these coins are all about

Top 10 places to visit - and to find a geocache

I am currently preparing my 2008 travel destinations, and here is my selection of the Top 10 places or things I would like to visit this year.

Hopefully I will find a find a geocache there - and if not, I'll place one :

1. The Red Square, in Moscow, Russia
2. The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India
3. The Lost City of the Incas, Machu Picchu, in Peru
4. The Pyramids of Egypt
5. Victoria Falls, in Southern Africa (either Zambia or Zimbabwe)
6. The Northern lights, in any place near the arctic circle
7. The Himalaya
8. The volcanoes of Iceland
9. Petra, the city carved in the mountain, Jordan
10. The Galapagos islands

That's my wish list for this year. Let's see if I can do at least five of them. Since I have to go to a wedding in Northern India in April, it looks like I will be able to see 2. and 7. And in october I plan to visit Peru and Ecuador, so Machu Picchu and the Galapagos islands are on the agenda, That would be 3 and 10. Finally, in two weeks from now I'll be in Moscow, so I will try to see the Red Square..

Stay tuned - you'll see the results on this blog every Sunday at least

A fabulous day in the Bahamas

Last week I was in Florida for a business trip and I decided to leave one day earlier (it's good to get rid of the jet lag on your first business meeting anyway) and fly to the Bahamas for a little geocaching.

It was surprisingly cheap : Less than 100 USD for a round trip from Ft Lauderdale to Nassau with American Airlines. The flight only takes 45 minutes and can be bumpy when the weather is stormy (the aircraft is a little ATR, see pic below). I left at 9 in the morning and returned at 6pm. It was a great day and actually you don't need much more time to visit this main island (Nassau is the capital). The weather was incredibly nice, with generous temperatures and a gentle breeze to cool you down when needed.

I found 4 caches on the island. As usual, without Geocaching I would never have seen the places I discovered. First the governor's mansion, where there is a microcache that is rather easy to find.

Then I went on to visit the water tower, a virtual cache where you need to find information about the tower itself, and you get a great view from the hill (yes, the water tower is on a hill, which makes quite a nasty climb when the weather is hot). Third cache was near Parliament Square, a cool green square in front of the pink parliament building. Most buildings are pink. Anybody know why ?



And last but not least I went to Paradise island to find my fourth cache. You need to take a ferry that takes you to the island in around 15 minutes, while a tour guide tells you funny stories about the island.


Unfortunately they tell the same jokes on the return trip as well, which makes it not so funny after all. The worst one ? "Watch your head when get on the boat. And if you hit your head, watch your language. Haha"





So when you get to the island you discover a Bahamian Disneyland with a huge Hotel-casino-beach-shopping complex that is called Atlantis and looks incredibly tacky. There is a mixture of Roman statues, Egyption styles and Greek temple columns, all looking awful together, but the whole place is grandiose.

And the boats (yachts, they are called, I think...) are a perfect match for the place. The place is quite large, and you need to walk a lot to get from the ferry jetty to the hotel, but the shops along the way are tempting. Finally when you enter the place you see the casino, which looks like most other casinos anywhere else in the world.





But the most interesting part of the hotel is certainly the restaurant, where diners are surrounded by a gigantic aquarium, with Sharks, manta rays and lots of other colorful fish.

The menu is all around you, so to speak (if you like to eat fish, of course)

Lots of visitors to see the aquariums, as the restaurant was closed

And the geocache in Atlantis ?


Well, it's a virtual cache near one of the entrances of the hotel. I won't give away the secret, since the place itself is stunning (no pictures, therefore) but it's even more grandiose and tacky at the same time than the rest of the hotel. That was the fourth cache of the day

I took a taxi to the airport at 6pm for the return flight (the airport is only 10 minutes away from the city center) and I enjoyed this day - Bahamians are a friendly bunch, as I met a few during the day.

There are a few more caches on the island, so that gives me a good excuse to come back, maybe on a cruise next time...

Very enjoyable day !

Discovering Carnaval while Geocaching

A nice geocaching day today. I completed a wonderful series of 26 caches today, in a small Flemish Village called Herenthout. The cache series was great because it took me through superb landscapes, and at the end of the series, a carnival procession was starting in the village.

Herenthout claims that this is is apparently the oldest carnival in Belgium, and I certainly don't want to start to start a debate on that, but it is clearly a crazy and joyful moment for the villagers (and lots of tourists who joined). The interesting thing is that there are 45 floats with a group of people who tell a story or perform a specific play... Interesting - look at the pictures

By the way, we had 17 degrees this afternoon in Herenthout. Looks like the global warming conversations will start again at the office tomorrow.

But gosh, the countryside looked so beautiful under the pale winter sun.

Here we go !

Feb 9 - Let's get started !

I'm traveling a lot, for work and for pleasure.
I see lots of wonderful things. And I meet lots of great people.

In spite of all the negative things you read about the world every day, our planet is still a wonderful place.
So I'd like to share what I see and like.

And since my hobby is geocaching, I'll also share all the great geocaches I have found, the great sights the geocachers wanted to show, and also the news about the geocoins I design.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think

Cheers

Luc.

PS : if you want to know more about geocaching, follow this link