Friday, February 15, 2013

St. Helena pt. 2


Pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the South Atlantic Ocean. Closest anything is Ascension Island, ca 700 nautical miles away.  Population:  4000. The telephone numbers and car license plates have four digits. No airport, no ATMs, no mobile phones. One supply/passenger  ship which comes  from South Africa once per month (well it stops again on the way back from Ascension Island, but not with any new supplies).  One town—Jamestown. The island looks very barren from sea, but the interior is green if not exactly lush. It is most famous probably because Napoleon spent his last several years here as a prisoner. He was buried here, but his body was moved to France 19 or so years after his burial. Folks are friendly. Everyone waves when they drive by and say hello if they’re walking.  It's British territory, but the people generally look some indeterminate mixture of Indian, African, and European ancestry. 

Sorry, I think the link to the photos in the last post was kaput. I have hopefully fixed it now. The problem seems to be that the default setting in Google photos is that only I can see the albums. So here they are hopefully. 

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