Happy Holidays! We hope that 2023 has been a good year for you and that you’re looking forward to an even better 2024. The sections below share stories and photos about things we’ve enjoyed this year.
As we said last year, Karen inherited a love of photography from her grandmother Melba Pankratz Regier, who took many pictures throughout her long life. So you’ll find plenty of photos in the stories below. The photos were taken by one of us (usually Karen but sometimes Terry) unless otherwise noted.
Our hope is that, for those of you who are very interested in a topic (say, current conditions in Cuba), you’ll find the different views and the details interesting and satisfying. You can click on an individual image to see it full screen. For those who aren’t as interested, we hope you will enjoy the tapestry of images as you scroll through. Or skip the stories altogether if you prefer.
In any case, we send our best wishes to you for a wonderful 2024 and we hope to see you some time during the year. Enjoy!
“Carpe Diem” was the name of an oceanfront lodge where we stayed in Angola. It’s Latin for “seize the day”. That is the lesson we learned from our experiences in 2023.
In several countries we visited, human activity had destroyed forests and grasslands that had been important habitat when our guides visited a year or two ago. This summer was the hottest on record in Bolivia (as in many other places) and there is continuing drought. So when we visited – at a time when birds should be singing to establish territories and catching food to feed their young – many species were silent and seem to have simply skipped nesting for this year. Political changes have placed some countries off limits too, and have created difficulties like fuel shortages and protests in Angola. Though we’ve been fortunate to have only minor health concerns, friends have had bigger challenges, and an acquaintance with a promising future as an international birding guide died unexpectedly – at age 35.
All these experiences tell us not to assume that people, places or experiences will wait until any of us get around to them. If there are things you want to do, or people you want to spend time with, or places you want to see … don’t wait! Go!
