Racing Against Time to Capture the Sunrise at the Eiffel Tower

Paris, the city of lights, love, and in my case, last-minute dashes to save my travel plans. As someone who prides themselves on being an early riser, I had meticulously planned to photograph the Eiffel Tower at sunrise. But even the best-laid plans can go awry, especially when jet lag, a cozy bed, and an alarm clock conspire against you.

The Morning Mishap

It was my first morning in Paris, and the excitement of being in such a magnificent city had kept me awake far too late the previous night. I had set multiple alarms, each meticulously planned to ensure I would be up before dawn, ready to capture the Eiffel Tower bathed in the soft morning light from Place du Trocadéro.

But alas, the siren call of sleep proved too strong. I awoke with a start, the sun already threatening to rise. Panic set in as I glanced at my watch—there was no time for a leisurely Metro ride. I scrambled out of bed, barely taking a moment to splash water on my face, and called a taxi from the app on my phone while I pulled on my pants and shoved my feet into my shoes. The plan was in jeopardy, but I was determined not to let my slumber sabotage my perfect sunrise photo.

The Race Begins

My initial plan had included a calm, contemplative stroll to the Metro station, appreciating the quiet streets of Paris. Instead, I found myself flagging down a taxi like a frantic New Yorker. My limited French managed to convey the urgency of my request to the driver: "Trocadéro, s'il vous plaît! Vite, vite!"

As we sped through the nearly empty streets of Paris, I couldn't help but feel a mix of anxiety and excitement. The driver, bless his heart, seemed to understand my predicament and drove with the urgency of a man on a mission. Every red light felt like an eternity, and every minute seemed to slip through my fingers like sand.

Place du Trocadéro: A Photographic Haven

Place du Trocadéro is arguably one of the best spots to photograph the Eiffel Tower. Located across the Seine River, it offers a panoramic view of the iconic landmark, unobstructed and breathtakingly beautiful. As the taxi pulled up, I tossed some euros at the driver, thanked him profusely, and sprinted towards the esplanade.

I reached Place du Trocadéro just as the first rays of sunlight began to illuminate the Eiffel Tower. The scene was everything I had hoped for—soft golden light washing over the iron lattice structure, the sky painted in hues of pink and orange. However, it wasn't just me and the sunrise. Place du Trocadéro was teeming with people, including a couple in wedding attire who had gotten up even earlier and set up their cameras to capture the same sunrise shot that I was after. I had to find a little spot to set up my camera on a tripod amidst the crowd. Out of breath but exhilarated, I quickly set up my camera and began shooting.

Capturing the Magic

There is a magical quality to the Eiffel Tower at sunrise. The early morning light casts a warm glow, and the usually crowded area is serene and peaceful. As I clicked away, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction. Despite the rocky start, I had made it in time to capture the perfect moment.

The shots turned out even better than I had imagined. The gentle light highlighted the tower's intricate design, and the nearly empty surroundings added a sense of tranquillity to the images. Each photograph told a story of perseverance, the race against time, and the beauty of Paris in the early hours.

Reflecting on the Experience

As I stood there, soaking in the scene and reviewing the shots on my camera, I realized that this little mishap had added a layer of adventure to my trip. It was a reminder that travel, like life, doesn't always go according to plan. Sometimes, it's the unexpected detours and the mad dashes that create the most memorable experiences.

In the end, my oversleeping had turned into a story worth telling—a story of a frantic race against time, the kindness of a Parisian taxi driver, and the breathtaking beauty of the Eiffel Tower at sunrise. It was a tale I would recount with a smile, a testament to the unpredictable nature of travel and the joy of capturing fleeting moments.

Tips for Future Travelers

For those planning to photograph the Eiffel Tower at sunrise, here are a few tips to avoid my mishap:

1. Set Multiple Alarms: And place them across the room to ensure you get up.
2. Prepare the Night Before: Have your gear ready and plan your route.
3. Consider a Taxi: Especially if you're short on time. It might be more expensive but can save precious minutes.
4. Embrace the Unexpected: Sometimes, mishaps make for the best stories.

Paris, with its charm and allure, always has a way of turning even the most frantic mornings into beautiful memories. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

[True story but I took ChatGPT's help to recount it.  Did it sound weird? Did you suspect it might be written by AI when you were reading it? 

Malta trip #12 – Day 4 – Lazy and Free

As a tourist I am the lazy type, but as a photographer I make more effort to get the shot I want than I would put in anything else. But this morning, which was a Sunday morning, both sides of my personality were satisfied at the same time. I wanted to take a great shot of the sunrise, but I didn’t have to go anywhere for it. I could shoot the sunrise right from the balcony of my room, in my pj’s. What can be better?

For some reason, I got up very early in Malta on most days. I am talking 0430, 0530 type of times. And I got up easily without having to force myself to keep my eyes open. I didn’t feel fatigue or sleep dep type of symptoms from it either. Was it the sunshine, the nice weather, the sea air, I don’t know. This day also I went and looked out the balcony a couple of times for the colour in the eastern sky and when I didn’t find it I went back to my writing. Yes, I had carried that keyboard from Gozo back to Malta.

Then the next time I went out, I found Roberta on her balcony, quiet as a ninja, shooting the sky with her camera. The sky was just beginning to show some reddish colours. I set up camp on my balcony and shot a lot of photos. There was a low, rambling building in the sea on our left. The waves crashing against its base presented a great scene. I used my mirrorless camera for a couple of long timelapses and used the phone for videos and photos. In case you don’t know a timelapse is when you set up the camera in one place and used the programmed mode to take photos at set intervals. The result is video that flows like a....ummm, well, like an animation,  you could say. It’s used in films a lot to show the passage of time.

 

For some reason, Blogger is not able to display the videos that I upload. Might be it’s too high resolution or the file sizes are too big. For now I will share just the photos from that morning session and later I will see if I can compile the videos into a vlog episode.

After shooting the sunrise our paths parted. Don’t worry, just for the day. Roberta wanted to cover a couple of sights today and I wanted to just roam around which I find to be a good way of getting to know a place. Plus, the first spot on her list was Mdina and I don’t know why but I could not get excited about that place no matter how many people recommended it.

 

Here is the story in two parts. Roberta left for her sightseeing and after lazing around for a bit, I got ready and went out by myself. I found a café to have a coffee and sandwich. Have I mentioned Latte Macchiato yet? Well, they didn’t have it. The sandwich was ok. Then I walked through St. Julian’s clubbing area to find the nearest bus stop. Have you ever been to a nightlife spot in the morning? It looks like the tail end of a misspent life.

I grabbed the bus for Valetta which is the capital of Malta and a historic city. Again, this was a crowded bus and I had to stand for a large part of the journey. Not fun. In Valetta I just walked around and took pictures of anything that took my fancy. That was the plan to begin with.

 

Although, I got tired in Malta a lot, it was quite funny in that way that it was not my knees or legs that felt tired but the bottom of my feet. They felt kind of rough from all the walking around, kind of like blisters but not as severe. I think I have been too sedentary during the pandemic and the soles of my feet might be too soft now. Need to work on that for the next trip.

Reminds me of an Urdu sher which you won’t understand but I will explain:

Jinke hothoN pe haNsi paavon mein chhale honge

Haan, wahi log tere chahne wale honge.

 Translation: Those who will have a smile on their lips and blisters on their feet, yes, those people will the ones who will be in love with you.

 What’s the deeper meaning? I have no idea. Actually, I do but it doesn’t fit here so let it go.

 

Valetta main street was like a normal market and here I was able to do something I had been wanting to do since I arrived. I went into a tourist trap shop and bought a couple of tshirts. Both were great. See pictures. They were €10.99 per tshirt which is not expensive but quality wise they were only ok. Hey, nobody twisted my arm to buy from there. They also had lots of souvenirs and I really liked the small soldier statues they had. I am the poster boy for buying things I don’t need but lately I have been thinking about toning down this habit, not stopping, just toning down. I thought about my living room and decided that I didn’t have any place to display that figure. In front of my TV would be ideal but that space is limited in height and it would block the screen. I have two small angel figures there that my nieces gave me on a birthday long ago but they are small so they fit in that space. Anyway, I liked it a lot but I left it on the shelf. The story of this soldier is not done, wait for the next part.

 

 

Walking around in that pleasant weather was great and when I found an ice cream shop I did not hesitate even for a second. But then I was ready to go back. On the way back, I didn’t even consider taking the bus and simply called a Bolt. I don’t know if it’s because of the size of the country or what, but whenever we book a taxi, we didn’t have to wait very long. Ten minutes would be the longest we had to wait.

 

Roberta was still out when I got back to the hotel. She got back in another hour. She had been to Mdina and also the Blue Grotto. The latter was one of the sights on my list as well but I preferred walking around as we had only one day left. The sea was too rough today but Roberta’s taxi driver drove her to a high point from where she could take photos of the natural arch that makes it photogenic.

 

The Corinthia had five swimming pools including one that was indoors and warm. Roberta’s plan for today’s included swimming. I had packed my swimming shorts as well because, well....I was going to an island. We found that you had to book your time in the pool so we made a booking for 1800H and looked around the hotel in the meantime.

 

At 1800, we were back there. There were only four more people there with us who were all good swimmers. Roberta is a better swimmer than me so did a couple of laps. I did my usual thing of walking as far from the shallow end as I dared and then swimming back to the shallow end. It was super fun. We tried the hot tub and even the sauna for a bit.

 [Photos from Roberta's travels. Unedited.] 

Next part – Malta Nightlife.

Malta Trip #7 – The Bridge of Disharmony

 

 The English lady Barbara was a lovely person who was retired and had been living in Gozo for many years. She was going to Malta for a couple of weeks to live in a flat a friend of hers had offered her. While she was waiting for her bus, she stopped us and started chatting with us. We were only too happy to chat because....well, we usually are.

 

While she was telling us about public transport and which ferry to take back to Malta, she casually mentioned that there is a ferry that goes from Malta to Sicily (an Island of Italy). It takes 90 minutes to get there and if one wants, they can take a ferry back at night after spending the day in Sicily. I have never been to Italy and this sort of thing really appeals to me. Roberta could see the mad gleam in my eye and she immediately put a stop to it.

 

“Sunny! No! We don’t have time.” Those were her exact words.

 

And I responded “Roberta, this is my bridge this time!”

 

Ok, the bridge, that was from our Copenhag

en trip. That’s a long story in itself but in short, there is a bridge that goes from Copenhagen in Denmark to Malmo in Sweden. Half an hour by train and you are in a different country. Roberta told me about it and I went crazy for it. That created lots of debate between us but ultimately we took the train that goes over that bridge. Both of us enjoyed it but Roberta had to do a lot of “Beautiful Mind” type calculations to make that fit in our plans. The Copenhagen trip was only two days. Later, in the lockdown days we were both glad we had been to Sweden even if for a few hours before all travel got stopped.

 

But this was different. We really didn’t have enough time even to see Malta properly and Sicily would be a big complication but come on, imagine one ferry, a ninety minute ride, and you are in a different country! I grew up in the central city of Delhi which is completely landlocked and even if you travel for four hours you would still be in India. Europe just drives me crazy that way.

 

Even after we left Barbara, we talked about it a little bit. I didn’t tell Roberta this because I like pulling her leg but I dropped that idea very quickly after I did some research on it and found that while the trip is all that Barbara indicated, in the current climate Sicily had more formalities and processes for Covid-19 precautions. I didn’t want to go through that hassle and I also knew we were short on time.

 

That afternoon, we went back to the Mgarr harbour and took a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus for Gozo sightseeing. Because it was only for the afternoon, the nice lady selling the tickets only charged us €10 each. She did want it in cash though. There was an ATM there so cash was no problem. I saw a lot of free ATMs in Malta that didn’t charge us for withdrawals and I was using my Monzo card so I didn’t have to worry about currency conversation rates or non-sterling transaction charges. Monzo is fantastic if you travel.

 

If I am completely honest, the HOHO bus was a bit of a snoozefest. Later we agreed that it was kind of a slow way to go sightseeing. I don’t have any data for a comparison that was just a feeling. One big problem is that although you can see a lot from the open deck of the bus, you can’t actually take any good pictures. I have tried that before in Glasgow and it didn’t really work. Here are a couple of examples of photos taken from the moving bus in Gozo, you can decide for yourself if they are any good.

 

We drove through Victoria and passed the remnants of a big, historical viaduct. Then we left the bus at Dwejra (pronounced: dwayraa). This was the site of the old Azure Window. I didn’t know about the Azure Window until Roberta told me before the trip. It was on her list of things to see and when I read about it, I was fascinated as well.

The Azure Window was a natural rock formation that looked like a window (hence the name) which was a unique natural feature. I am using past tense because unfortunately the window collapsed in 2017 in a storm. Now it’s a site for people to take photos of the hillside that remains while braver souls go scuba diving there to look at the ruins of the window in the water. Nevertheless, it was a nice spot, very pretty.

 

After we were done taking the photos we had to wait for the next HOHO bus to pick us up. In the meantime, we had ice creams, well, I had a milkshake. It was ok. The HOHO bus in Gozo has two routes - purple and blue. The funny thing is where they meet, in Victoria, nothing changes. You stay on the same bus and it starts driving on the Blue route. Yep. It must make sense to somebody somewhere.

 We stopped at a big church, Ta’Pinu, just for 10 minutes to take photos. Then back to Victoria. 

Victoria is the capital of Gozo, a small city. I can’t say whether it’s great or not great because, well, it’s just a city. It has the famous Citadella (or Citadel, if you wanna be English about it.) Roberta wanted to get there but she was not ready for the bus to become Blue route and carry on before we could get off. We left that behind and stayed with the bus as far as Marsalforn (pronounced: Marsaal-forn) which is a seafront. I don’t want to be disparaging about it but it was just a seafront. There were some kids learning to dive there so it was more for doing than looking. Actually, I changed my mind the next day but we will get to that.

 

From Marsalforn, we took a Bolt taxi to Wied-il-Mielah (I am leaving out accents in my laziness) which is another natural window like the Azure Window except that it’s still standing. Well, we tried to get there. Remember I told you there’s always work going on everywhere in Malta? That’s what happened to us here. Our taxi could not take us to the window because the road was blocked. The taxi driver dumped us there saying it was just a ten minutes walk from there.

 

We didn’t have any choice except to get out but neither of us is the doe-eyed innocent bumpkin that we used to be. Roberta checked on Google Maps and it was showing 23 minutes to walk down. We started walking down and it was all downhill. But before going much further we asked the road workers how far down was the window. Have I mentioned that the Maltese people were really easy to talk to? You could ask directions from anybody, you could chat with anybody, you could ask stupid questions, they were always friendly and responsive. One of the best things that I liked about Malta was the people.

 

One of the road workers told us that it was straight down on that road about 15 minutes walk. His colleague said it was more like 30 minutes. We raised this point with the first guy.

 

“Yess...fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, like that.” He said.

 

What? There’s a huge different between 15 and 30. We talked about it. Roberta raised the point that going down was all downhill but a 30 minute walk uphill to come back? We had been doing a lot of walking, climbing etc. all day today so that was not a good prospect. My objection was that the light was already fading. In 30 minutes it would fade even more. I had seen the photos of the window, it needed good light for photography. You will see what I mean. But given our tour plan, if we didn’t go to see the window today, we wouldn’t be able to fit it in our itinerary again because we were leaving Gozo the next day at noon.

 

Have you heard the expression “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”?

 

Retreating gracefully, we walked back to the road closure and called a taxi. And that taxi changed the course of history! Ok, I am exaggerating so you would read the next post but honestly, that taxi ride did have a big impact on our Gozo trip the next day.

 

Malta Trip #4 – Running, Walking, Ferrying

 

[Photo credit: Roberta]
 

From the internet I knew what the electronics store was called and even the stock of keyboards they had. Then Roberta used her navigation expertise (Google Maps) and found out which bus we needed and from which stop. We got out and took some photos but there was still about half an hour to the bus time so we came back into the airport to wait. This was the problem we found with the Malta buses that the services were about 45 minutes or an hour apart.

 

There was a taxi driver at the bus stop who offered to take us to the harbour for 15 euros which was very cheap and if we didn’t have to buy the keyboard first we could have taken his offer. But I wanted that keyboard on the first day so I could use it during my trip and Roberta never cribs about my projects even when they introduce more hassle. I think she goes into everything with a sense of adventure which is quite the right spirit for any trip. Anyhow, we declined the taxi driver’s offer and waited for the bus.

 

The buses are quite punctual we found and ours came right on time. Roberta knew which stop to get off at and I followed her. Then we had a jolly old time trying to find the store itself. We found the mall it was in and then shunted around until we saw the sign across a car park. They did have all those keyboards but no Bluetooth keyboard. Anyway I had brought a USB-C to USB-A adapter for my tablet so I could buy a USB keyboard as well. The staff was very nice and spoke excellent English. They showed me multiple keyboards and let me try them, but it was slow going until I realised I was trying to find a £100 quality in a £20 keyboard. That made the decision easy. I bought a Logitech USB keyboard-mouse set for €24.99. Honestly, it worked very well even for my touch typing. My tablet had a touch-screen so I ended up never using the mouse.

 

We needed the same bus to go ahead to the harbour and I had wasted so much time in picking out a keyboard that we didn’t have much time before the bus was due. We knew that the next one would be 45 minutes later and didn’t want to waste that much time. So, we ran, pushing our suitcases and carrying the backpacks plus a big bag containing the keyboard box. We made it to the bus stop with 4 minutes to spare.

 

Unfortunately, the bus was much crowded this time. We had to stand and you know it’s not fun to stand with a heavy backpack on your back and a suitcase that wants to roll around on the smooth bus floor. But when you travel by public transport you get an insight into the character of the place. You meet the real people on the bus, going about their normal daily activities. Even if I don’t want to, I would notice those things.

 

For example, there were some other people there as well with big bags, bigger than ours. The bus was only one deck so it was quite busy. When somebody had to get off, people had to move around to give them space. It was quite awkward. But I didn’t see any scowls or frowns. People smiled when they made eye contact. It was good to see that and the rest of my experience with the Maltese people in the coming days confirmed my impression of them that I made in that bus journey. Or actually, even before that. There was a health desk at the airport where they were checking our vaccination records. I met with smiling officials with no hurry. If I take two extra minutes to find the PDF on my phone, why, that’s perfectly fine. I saw that relaxed attitude in most things there.

 

We got to the harbour which is called Cirkewwa with a circumflex on the C (that hat character like this ^?) . Did I mention that Malta the country is an archipelago which means a cluster of islands? Our stay for the first two nights was on the Gozo islands. There is a ferry that runs between the two islands which we now needed to board. It was due at 1630, if I remember right. The funny thing was that you don’t buy a ticket on the Ferry. You buy a ticket from Gozo to Malta. If you think about it, it makes sense, Malta is the main island. Everybody ultimately has to come back to Malta. I will tell you later how we cheated this system.

 

 

I love ferries because they are big enough that I don’t get motion sickness but also they are specious. It’s a very luxurious feeling. The best thing on this ferry though was that this 25 minutes ride was at the exact time when the sun was setting. Can you imagine, we were at the best spot to take photos of the sunset exactly when it was happening? We could not have planned it better. But it just worked out.

 

We just lugged our suitcases to the top deck and took out our cameras. Oh, man, was it glorious! I have hundreds of photos from that session but I will only share a few of them here to keep you from running away.

 

 

What resolution is your life?

I have been fortunate enough to live through a period of world history in which technology has gone from a child's play to science fiction level. I have seen the time when mobile phones didn't use to exist and to now when there is one in everyone's pocket. Every year there there are many new models and they fight over features like dogs over a bone. One feature that is usually hotly contested is the camera. Let's forget about the point what is a camera doing in something called a phone and just talk about the state of the art. 

The most popular part of the camera and its improved features is resolution. A quick sidebar to explain - every digital photo is made up of tiny dots which are called pixels. Resolution is just the notation to show how many of these pixels are there in a photo taken by a particular digital camera (phone camera or DSLR). For example 1920x1080 which is lovingly called Full HD or 1080p means that the photo has 1920 dots widthwise and 1080 dots along the height. The more pixels there are the smoother and "higher definition" the photo will be. 

While this is the most publicised metric in a camera, people argue that that's not the best or only measure of quality. There is camera sensor size, image processing software, the glass (a fancy way of saying lens) and a few other things that contribute to the quality of a photo. But I want to ask what is the "quality" of a photo? 

Exhibit A: look at this photo below. 

This photo was taken in the 1990s before google was a verb and youtube was not even in its mother's womb. The "three moustacheers" in the photo are Harry, Fazil and yours truly. This was a time in our life when we had finished high school (we went to the same school) and were doing college. We were trying to find our place in the world and searching for our guiding star. From this search we used to take time, maybe once or twice a week, to go on an evening walk to this park about 2 miles from our homes. 

Obviously, you can see how "bad" the photo is. It was taken on a film camera, degraded over time and then scanned into the computer. [Kudos to my nephew Sagar for preserving and emailing it to me.] 

Exhibit B: This is a picture from a Matheran trip (a 'hill' station in Maharashtra, India) with Bhuwnesh and his family. Bhuwnesh and I became friends in US out of necessity because we were the new people there and all the other Indian colleagues were already settled in their lives. Plus, we got along well despite being very different in personality. That's the reason we stayed in touch no matter how many times he or I changed cities and countries. 

This photo was taken in 2006 from an Olympus camera which was 1.3mega pixels. Don't laugh, that's the best I had then.  

I also have a lot of photos which are taken with good cameras in high resolution but don't mean half as much to me. 

Let's take an exception, exhibit C, taken in 2020: 

This is a high resolution photo taken with a proper DSLR last year. Given the condition the world was in when my nephew Sagar married his girlfriend Harsha, I had no chance to go to attend their wedding in Canada. Had it not been for the technology I could not have watched their wedding ceremony on a  video call and I would not have been able to see their smiling faces in the lovely photos. 

My point is not that "Old is always good". My point is that it's not the resolution in the camera that matters, it's the resolution of your life that matters. Surround yourself with people who enrich your life, guide your mind to thoughts that add meaning to your life and make sure that your actions and words enrich other people's life. That's the resolution that matters the most. 

Now I wanna be a photographer!

It seems to me that I have this unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Not just knowledge but skills, things I can actually do and accomplish. Trying to learn Salsa is part of it so was insisting on learning to drive a manual car. And my latest is trying to learn photography. But, it's not really new.

When I was young, very young, less than 7 years old, we used to live in a rented house. Our neighbour family had a son who was ..umm...I am in no position to guess how old he was then, but I'd say in his 20s or so. I used to call him Rajesh Bhaiya and he was friends with my elder brothers. He had a black and white camera (we are talking about the 70s), and a small room under the the top flight of stairs that he used to use as a dark room. I saw him going in there and then coming out with finished prints and stuff like that. To me that was so glamorous! That whole business of working in a special room and developing films, it was like magic. He earned my childish respect for that. I think that's where my fascination with photography first started.

In the later years, I have been quite obsessed with taking photos, something doing a good job at other times, botching it up completely. In the recent years, I have been able to own and use digital cameras and collect a lot of photos in the process. But none of it was to be a photographer, just to take photos, subject or events were more important in my mind than the act of taking photos to get better at it, if you know what I mean.

The latest inspiration was my colleague, Derek, who is an accomplished Amateur Professional. He usually likes cars and takes a lot of photos at car shows and exhibitions. He is very good at it, to the point of having had his shots published in magazines and even used on the covers. He is quite passionate about it and I guess some of that motivated me. (If learning a new skill is involved, I get motivated easily, go figure!)

So, I bought a camera. I already had a 5MP Casio digital camera that I bought in Germany in 2005. It has served me well and still works. But now I wanted something better, something with more zoom and a faster shutter, with more settings.

There is nothing better than to research for an electronic item before purchase. I spent a whole day doing that and finally bought a Fuji Finepix S1800. It's called a Bridge Camera. Not because you can only take photos of bridges with it, but it serves as a bridge when you want to go from a compact digital camera to a full Digital SLR.

Here is a link to its Amazon page in case you are curious to find out more about the camera.

I simply love it! It has 18X optical zoom and 6.3x digital zoom (optical is the one that matters). I can't give you the technical details like sensor size and lens type etc. but I know that the only shortcoming of this model is that it does not have interchangeable lenses. I looked into those cameras and they were way too expensive. This was under £200 and they were closer to £500 and in most cases above it.

Having received the camera in post, I wanted to take it out for a spin. I chose the Aspinall Animal Park at Port Lympne. They had a photography course for £90. A whole day, with an expert photographer and only 8 places.

I did that last Saturday and it was amazing! There was nothing in the way of instructions, but there was a very experienced photographer at hand to ask questions and he gave us some tips from time to time.

Even I got some great photos from that day. We had great VIP access to all the animals so we could take photos easily and up close. No crowds jostling our elbows. In the afternoon we actually went into the cage of the Colubus monkeys.

Here are some samples:

From A day with animals

From A day with animals

From A day with animals

From A day with animals

From A day with animals