Cenote Diving on the Mayan Riviera

Extreme Challenge in Mexico

Mexico’s underside is mostly limestone which has been hollowed out by the ocean into a whole system of tunnels, caves and caverns called cenotes. Like other underground water systems these caves are still chambers, reverent with stalagmites and stalactites and pale green waters. What is different is that the system is quite large and has many open air entrances and exits and wide tunnels so snorkellers as well as divers can go exploring down here. The water temp is consistent and visibility is really good – the view is surprisingly un-repetitive. If you’ve done this before there are routes that will take you all the way out to the sea. Doesn’t matter how experienced you are you have to go with a local or have a cavern diving qualification, but then I don’t know if you’d want to go on your own. There are something like 700kms worth of tunnels and only the locals know the best ones. The thing I’ll remember most is the different colours of the water. Some of the deeper cenotes are really green, like grass green, but shallower ones have iridescent pale blue water like the caverns you find underneath deserts.

When you fly over this part of the Mayan Riviera you can see the cenotes like pock marks in the ground there are that many. They start off fresh water so they were important to the Mayans, which is why they built their communities around them, so they’re right in the jungle amongst the ruins, another reason for describing the caverns as reverent, local divers are pretty spiritual about them. If tunnels all day every day starts to make you claustrophobic there’s always the Mesoamerican reef off shore.

Venice Beach

Beaches in Los Angeles, United States

Venice Beach has a hedonistic carnival atmosphere with artists, street performers, body beautifuls exercising, music, food smells, shopping and markets, music and lots of things happening. In summer it’s everyday and in winter it kicks off at the weekend, but the long flat beaches lined with tall palm trees and the cafes and shops of a busy seaside front are the perfect place to stroll, ride a bike or chill, and with the chillin’ crowds comes the entertainers and vendors, which in turn attracts more chillers and tourists and the cycle continues. The Venice in the name comes from the artificial canals dug during the founding of the town as a seaside resort at the turn of the 20th Century.

A ‘muscle beach’, skate park, basketball courts and volleyball court are included in people’s understanding of Venice Beach, which mainly means the promenade and Ocean Front Walk, but you've probably seen it in a film and know that already - Venice beach is in loads of films...

Shackleton Glacier

Frozen Landscapes in Antarctica

Stunning, remote and dangerous more than anything else, the Shackleton Glacier isn’t somewhere most people get the opportunity to go which is probably why adventurous souls are drawn there. The glacier bed comes from the bare rock Roberts Massif onto the Ross Ice Shelf. That probably means little to most people bar that it is long and icy but the terrain is one of the most spectacularly beautiful vistas you can imagine. Another reason to fly over (most people will never get close to the opportunity of walking on it) the glacier is it’s name which cements it’s place on an Antarctic hit list. It’s very expensive and very difficult to get to - which could be both the main reasons to tray and see it to not bother - but photos just don’t do it’s beauty justice.

Brandenburg Gate

Monuments & Landmarks in Berlin, Germany

Like the Eiffel Tower to Paris, the Empire State Building to New York or the Opera House to Sydney so is the Brandenburg Gate to Berliners and visitors to Berlin. At the end of an equally famous tree lined street between the gate and the palace. Originally one in a set this is the last survivor of a line of gates you used to have to pass though to enter Berlin. When the wall went up the gate was in a kind of no mans land technically in West Germany but too close to the wall for people to use and it was a big deal to Berliners when it reopened after the wall came down.

The Nazis used the gate in their propaganda so most people know it from there and surprisingly it wasn’t destroyed in the war.

Another cool story about the gate is that after one successful battle, Napoleon took the garnishing statue (the goddess of victory riding a chariot) back with him to Paris, but the Germans got it back eight years later when they took Paris.

Goldeneye Bungy from the Verzasca Dam

Film Locations in Switzerland

This is one of those cliche things that it seems like everyone knows about and wants to do - but that doesn't make it any less awesome. Standing on the lip of the dam it's really easy to think this could be one of your last moment on earth. Without being too gratuitous I did imagine my head splattering like a watermelon against the side of the dam on my way down (which some how made it easier for me to jump when Timmy counted down?). But the desire to be as Bond was strong enough to urge me on...and the fact that I had dared my friend to do it with me and he had gone first even though if I had gone first and died I told him he wouldn't have to go through with it. But Bond has some big shoes to fill in my book and this isn't the only Bond stunt I am trying to replicate.

Obviously I didn't die. Instead I got one of the biggest rushes of my life. Some people were all like: it's not that great a location what are you going to see etc. but being able to see the dam wall wooshing past in your peripheral vision made your velocity all the more real. Seven seconds of falling - that is actually a pretty long time - count it out in Mississippis and you'll see what I mean, then imagine plummeting headfirst off a structure that large. This is actually heaps more thrilling than skydiving because of the perspective.

Wow. All I can say is get hold of the movie and think about what it would be like to do it and pack an extra pair of daks.