Reflections of a traveling veterinarian
It is Monday morning and I am walking along the windswept promenade of Punta Arenas with the Magellan Strait on my right side and Tierra del Fuego visible on the horizon. With the local head quarters of the Chilean Navy behind me, I am passing the cut out prow of the Yelcho and the life …
Continue reading “Veterinary Medicine at the (other) end of the world…..”
It was finally time to change from T-Shirts and beach wear to a business suit. The main purpose of my visit to Lima and to Peru was the annual World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) Congress where I had been ask to moderate some sessions of the scientific programme and to say a few words …
Continue reading “One small profession – one large family (Lima Edition)”
I am closing the gate of Lima 18, the small and intimate hotel I am staying at in Miraflores, carefully and set out for a short morning run. The hotel is very conveninently situated next to the ruins of the pre-Incan pyramid of Pucilana, which is surounded not only by a high fence but also …
The taxi journey that should have taken ten minutes lasted already over half an hour and I was seriously wondering if the price quoted : “Diecisiete!” – seventeen – referred indeed to Soles (= circa 4$) or in fact to US Dollars. The taxi from Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima had been paid in …
Turning off to the right at El Alto, which is not more than a re-fueling stop along the Panamericana, the road starts to descend in narrow serpentines towards the ocean…. Apart from rocks, sand and a few oil wells, there is nothing here and it is hard to believe that the rich and famous had …
Benjamin, my driver, was not a man of many words….. That was fine by me, as my Spanish didn’t stretch to any meaningful conversations anyway. In addition to this is was 5 o’clock in the morning and still dark when we set off along the Panamericana in a Southerly direction. The reason why we had …
Ernest Hemingway was sitting on the terrace of the Cabo Blanco Fishing Club enjoying his Martini and he was looking over the endless Pacific Ocean in front of him. It had been a good day – a rare occasion for an author who was struggling to constantly having to prove himself against an army of …
Continue reading “The Old Man and the Sea (or veterinary adventures part III)”
One of the great advantages of being a veterinary surgeon is that compared with many other forms of employment, people usually have an idea of what our job might be and in most cultures the work we are doing is looked upon favourably, especially when it turns out that we are treating companion animals and …
1960 John Steinbeck took his standard poodle Charley on a road trip through America to learn more about the land and about the people he was writing about. His “Travels with Charley in Search of America”turned out to be not only one of the greatest travel narratives ever written, but it is also one of …
Continue reading “Travels with Mia: In Search of Northern Europe”
“Yes, you will be fine – just leave it here !….” I just couldn’t believe it – having driven over 400 miles from the Baltic Sea around the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and through the rolling countryside in the East of Poland , I had found a free parking space right in the centre …
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