calvisson-leblon

November, 2019. If Portugal ranks as the 4 th most peaceful country in the world (my previous blog), Bolivia must rank at the bottom of the list.   On the other hand, the country is a leader in violent military coups, or golpes are they are known in Latin America.   Golpes in Bolivia are rather straightforward, case book scenarios whereby an existing government, democratic or not, is overthrown by non-democratic forces, such as a military putsch , a dictator or a political faction.   This time around, Bolivia over did it: two golpes took place consecutively.   By tinkering with the Constitution and then rigging the ballot box, Evo Morales, the president, resorted to a political golpe to stay in power.   Street protests and bloodshed followed.   With the objective of restoring order, the military forced Morales to resign, an ultimatum which looks like a military golpe.   Morales fled into exile in Mexico.         ...

Have you heard someone deriding Portugal lately?   Probably not; for various reasons, this country seems to be everybody’s darling. Last week I went to a dinner party and the guests did not stop raving about Lisboa, as Lisbon is known in Portuguese, and Portugal in general.   They had either returned from an enchanted stay in the city or could not wait to go back there to escape the rough and tumble of Carioca life.   I am also fond of Portugal, but I do not get emotional about the country.    As a fish eater, I like Lisbon, renowned for its fantastic seafood restaurants.   Lisbon is charming, human-sized but tiring to explore because it is not flat.   I can understand my friends’ attachment to Portugal; a large number of Brazilians have Portuguese relatives or ancestors and never cut the umbilical cord with the former colonial power.   A visit to a terrinha , an affectionate Brazilian term to describe tiny Portugal, is a time-honored pil...

But in style. Travelling to the Kimberley region in Western Australia (WA) has been on my bucket list for decades.   Since I was unable to explore it as a geologist, I decided to visit it as a tourist [1] .   This fascination began in the early 1970s when I worked as a junior geologist in Australia.   I was dispatched to the outback of Northern Queensland to prospect for mundane commodities such as zinc and copper but envied my colleagues who were exploring for diamonds in the remote Kimberley.   Are not diamonds a girl’s best friend?   My boss should have taken the song seriously, and sent me to the Kimberley with the boys.   At the time I was probably mixing up the Kimberley names.   Diamonds mostly occur in a rock called kimberlite, which was named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa [2] and not in Australia.   Coincidentally, the two Kimberley names derived from the same person, British foreign secretary John Wodehous...