EXTREME HOLIDAY HIDEWAYS
In these days of social distancing, Sarah Baxter highlights some little-known spots to add to your fantasy travel list
When I wrote a book called Hidden Places, I wasn’t expecting the concept of hiding to be quite so on-trend. Now as the world grapples with a pandemic, somewhere remote and special seems like the Holy Grail of holidays. Even without our new-found eagerness to avoid other people, hidden places were special. They can affect you more deeply than the headline sites.
Go to a more alternative attraction and you get the feeling you are peeling back a layer, going somewhere few have been, gaining an insight into something once — or still — concealed. These are sites with stories to disclose; places of majesty and mystery that have provided shelter, inspiration, strategic advantage and spiritual succour to our ancestors across the ages, and that provide surprise and intrigue for travellers today.
This is a time to begin to make plans for our future trips when all this mayhem is over (for this too shall pass). If you have become rather used to living life without the masses, thenwhy not consider seeking out more secretive spots for your post-Covid adventures?
Dream of doing something different, getting out, getting away, discovering the lesser-known and of making the most of all corners of the globe when the globe reopens.
1 Supai, Arizona, US
Really want to hide? Try the most remote village in the US. Supai, home to around 650 members of the Havasupai tribe, is tucked down Havasu Canyon, an offshoot of Arizona’s Grand Canyon. The 12km trip from the top of the rim to the bottom of the gorge can only be done by foot, horse or helicopter. The US Postal Service transports all mail in and out by mule. It’s a beautiful spot, watered by Havasu Falls and a chain of other cascades which, say the Havasupai, provide a spiritual link between people and the earth.
2 Spirit Island, Alberta, Canada
This little islet — no more than a spinney of trees — sits quietly amid the Rocky Mountains in Jasper National Park. For centuries, few knew of its existence, floating on an unknown lake, flanked by high peaks and hefty glaciers. The only visitors were Stoney Nakoda First Nations peoples, plus a menagerie of caribou, moose, eagles and bears. The first white person to see both the waterway — now known as Maligne Lake — and Spirit Island was intrepid lady explorer Mary Schäffer
Warren in 1908. Now it’s popular for those seeking the ultimate “Canadian wilderness” photo-op. The only way to get there is by boat, and motor cruisers putter from the dock at Maligne Lake’s northern end. A better way is to go by kayak, camp nearby and paddle to Spirit in the early morning, before the tour boats arrive.
3 Yonaguni, Japan
Yonaguni-jima Kaitei Iseki (the Yonaguni Island Submarine Ruins) were discovered off Japan’s southwestern tip in the mid-’80s by a local diver. The sunken ruins — a rectangular formation that some have likened to a Maya pyramid — are a mystery, prompting many theories: some say it is the work of aliens or proof of the lost continent of Mu. More likely it is the result of sandstone cracking naturally in this area of high tectonic activity.
4 Actun Tunichil Muknal, Belize
This forest-shrouded cave deep within central Belize’s Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve is the purported gateway to the Xibalbá, the Mayan underworld. Discovered in 1989 and opened to adventurers in 1998, the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal is thought to have been visited frequently by the Maya, who seem to have used it for sacred rituals. Getting there requires a trek through snake-filled jungle, a swim across a turquoise pool into the cavern and a partpaddle, part-hike, part-clamber into the darkness, down narrow passageways and past stalactites, rock shelves and ancient ollas (clay jars). Most macabre and magnificent of all is a glimpse of the “Crystal Maiden”, an intact skeleton from a human sacrifice made over 1,000 years ago.
5 Mount Borradaile, Australia
Arnhem Land is one of the planet’s least inhabited regions. This remote 97,000km² reserve in northernmost Northern Territory is home to no more than 16,000 people. And it is one of the last redoubts of Indigenous Australian culture. The whole area is flush with rock art, but best is Mount Borradaile — or Awunbarna as it is known to the Amurdak people. Resplendent pictograms in vivid reds, yellows and white seem to grace every wall. There are snakes and dugongs and Tasmanian devils, long vanished from this part of Australia; there are waving hands, stick figures and internal organs; and there is “contact art” depicting the ships and rifles brought by colonisers. The Amurdak still own the Mount Borradaile area but they opened it in the ’80s to ecotourism, making it possible to visit with an Aboriginal guide and experience 50,000 years of human history.
6 Phnom Kulen, Cambodia
You’ve heard of Angkor Wat. But what about this? Phnom Kulen — the Mountain of the Lychee — was the birthplace of the Khmer Empire. It was here on this low mountain in AD 802 that King Jayavarman II declared independence from the kingdoms of Java and was pronounced chakravartin (king of the world). Phnom Kulen was usurped by Angkor and eventually abandoned. It was only officially “rediscovered” in 2012.
The long-hidden ruins lie a wild-andworth-it journey from Siem Reap; guided explorations of the jungly plateau reveal barely visited sites such as the towering, tangerine-coloured temple of Prasat O’Paong and Sras Damrei (Elephant Pond), an enormous, moss-fuzzed elephant hewn from a single sandstone block.
7 Bulnes, Spain
In the tiny cliff-squeezed village of Bulnes, high in the Picos de Europa mountains, life is — and always has been — lived vertically. For centuries the only way in was to walk the well-worn mule tracks that zigzag up from the valley bottom. Since 2001, a funicular railway has linked it to the town of Poncebos below. But still, it’s remote and home to no more than 50 people — ideal if you want to get away from almost everybody. The village has a couple of guesthouses and cafés serving fabada (bean stew), plus fantastic trekking potential amid the surrounding limestone peaks, not least the must-do day-hike through the dramatic Cares Gorge.