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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: North America; Published: 28 October 2023; Hits: 4627

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San Juan, Puerto Rico, has an interesting fort and a pretty township. I kept hearing 'America' from West Side Story playing in my head.

Once a giant Spanish Fort, San Juan resisted all comers, including the British, until the United States bombarded it from the sea, then landed a ground force and took it, as they did in Cuba and Hispaniola. Unlike those islands, the US has held it ever since, as it remained, until WW2, strategically key to the naval control of the Caribbean.

Now I'm hearing America again.

"I like the city of San Juan
I know a boat you can get on"

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Travel

Peru

In October 2011 our little group: Sonia, Craig, Wendy and Richard visited Peru. We flew into Lima from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. After a night in Lima we flew to Iquitos.

Fiction, Recollections & News

To Catch a Thief

(or the case of the missing bra)

It's the summer of 2010; the warm nights are heavy with the scent of star jasmine; sleeping bodies glisten with perspiration; draped, as modestly requires, under a thin white sheet. A light breeze provides intermittent comfort as it wafts fitfully through the open front door.

Yet we lie unperturbed. To enter the premises a nocturnal visitor bent on larceny, or perhaps an opportunistic dalliance, must wend their way past our parked cars and evade a motion detecting flood-light on the veranda before confronting locked, barred doors securing the front and rear entrances to the house.

Yet things are going missing. Not watches or wallets; laptops or phones; but clothes: "Did you put both my socks in the wash?" "Where's my black and white striped shirt?" "I seem to be missing several pairs of underpants!"

Opinions and Philosophy

The Hydrogen Economy

Since I first published an article on this subject I've been taken to task by a young family member for being too negative about the prospects of a Hydrogen Economy, mainly because I failed to mention 'clean green hydrogen' generated from surplus electricity, employing electrolysis.

Back in 1874 Jules Verne had a similar vision but failed to identify the source of the energy, 'doubtless electricity', required to disassociate the hydrogen and oxygen.

Coal; oil and gas; peat; wood; bagasse; wind; waves; solar radiation; uranium; and so on; are sources of energy. But electricity is not.

Electricity (and hydrogen derived from it) is simply a means of transporting and utilising energy - see How does electricity work? on this website.

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