Word: islanded
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...hello? In a time of overnight city breaks and sequestered spa retreats, shaking hands with old-timers in straw hats with names like Joao Baptista (who turns out to be the local historian) may seem like a simple pleasure, but it is an increasingly rare one. Then again, Ibo Island in the Indian Ocean off northern Mozambique is a very rare place. (See pictures of luxury private islands...
Much of this difference is geographic. The mountains that lie across the island can cut off Haiti's rainfall. The northeast trade winds, and so the rain, blow in the Dominican Republic's favor. Haiti's semiarid climate makes cultivation more challenging. Deforestation - a major problem in Haiti, but not in its neighbor - has only exacerbated the problem. Other differences are a result of Hispaniola's long and often violent history - even TIME called it a "forlorn, hate-filled little Caribbean island" in 1965. On the eastern part of Hispaniola, you'll probably speak Spanish; in the west...
When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he named the land La Isla Española. It served as a Spanish colony and base for the empire's further conquests, though it was never particularly profitable. In 1697 the Spanish formally ceded the western third of the island to the French, who were already present and more heavily invested. The Hispaniolan outposts of both empires imported African slaves, though the latter did so to a much greater extent. The colonies - Santo Domingo and Saint-Domingue, respectively - subsequently developed vastly different demographics. According to a study by the American Library of Congress...
...comments on The 700 Club that the nation's history of catastrophes owed to a "pact with the devil" that its residents had made some 200 years ago. How else to explain why Haiti suffers, while the Dominican Republic - which shares the 30,000 sq. mi. of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola - is relatively well-off? "That island of Hispaniola is one island," Robertson said. "The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty." (See why Pat Robertson blames Haiti for the earthquake...
...been warned many times - not least by the annual shark attacks that happen up and down South Africa's lengthy coastline. We also know that the warm waters of False Bay, south of the city, are a favored breeding and feeding ground for great whites, particularly around Seal Island, a rock that sits in the middle of the bay and hosts a huge colony of Cape fur seals. And we're well aware that Fish Hoek, the seaside holiday village where the attack took place, is particularly dangerous. Many of us have seen this picture, taken just off our favorite...