Author Archives: Julie Paterson
Abdullah’s miracle
8 October 2019, Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt. I was meandering my way down a dusty, nameless Dahab street on a sunny desert day, on my way to visit a toothless, old Bedouin lady. She speaks to me in an old dialect through her scarf and I barely understand a word, but I am intrigued by […]
Why we need to be kept in the dark…
Last week I learned why we really shouldn’t be afraid of the dark…and why we need to be kept in the dark… During my long years as an outdoor guide, I spent many a night gazing at the beautiful starry nights with my international clients, quite in awe, and wondering all those things that you […]
When I was a travelling unicorn in Africa in the 80s
My most favorite decade of travel was the 80s – ahhh the good old days. No internet, no plastic problems, no over-tourism, no mobile phones, no selfie sticks, no extinction problems and best of all, nobody knew where you were. We just drifted around, using the trusted travelers grapevine as our Stone Age Tripadvisor, only […]
Covid 19 news from my guides around the world…
In April I wrote to my guides in different places around the world to get an on-the-ground-perspective of what was happening in the world. One day we will look back at this post as a piece of history, and a reminder of what we went through. Here is what they said: NEWS FROM MARCELLO IN […]
A long visit to Limboland
Limboland. It’s not a place I have spent much time in before. Who would have thought, that whilst on a 4 week holiday in my country of birth, New Zealand, visiting friends and family, that I would have gotten stranded here in Limboland, with my life as I knew it turned upside down? Mid March […]
Cuba – a journey and a lesson
Cuba: Pina Coladas, cigars, tropical beaches, salsa and old cars! That’s the main image most people have of this hot, time-warped Caribbean island. But, as with any travels, we discovered much more than that: a land with a rocky history, which still very much affects the present, and locals bracing themselves for the future. Above […]
Revisiting Ethiopia 10 years on…
It had been a few years since I had been to Ethiopia, so I was curious to see the changes. Sometimes things change for the good, sometimes for the worse. But I think what I had forgotten is that it’s how Ethiopia changes you. Unlike most other countries which you visit, learn about the culture […]
Bedouin women making history
Um Yasser, a middle-aged Bedouin woman of the Hamada tribe in South Sinai, was born in a rock house, but spent much of her childhood living in a cave dwelling in the desert, where she and her mother tended their herd of goats. The Bedouins are an old, conservative ethnic group, with laws that govern […]
Ramadan in the Sinai
I have just spent my first full month of Ramadan in the Sinai, Egypt. In the past I had experienced snippets of Ramadan before in other Arab countries, but never been here for the full length, so was kind of excited to see how things progress. Here is a little bit of background and a […]
Adventures of Venus 