We decided to visit this peak unexpectedly, although I had wanted to go there for a few years. We drove fifteen kilometres from Vilnius and were still surrounded by houses, with construction going on next to the hill. First we tried the south side, but were stopped by the construction fences that ran all along…
West Africa 2023 II
The easiest and cheapest way to get to Cameroon was via Frankfurt in Germany and then to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. There I met Petter and time flew as we talked about past peakbagging trips. Unfortunately, my plan to visit Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea and climb Pico Basil fell through, mainly due to complicated…
Southwest Cameroon
After a few hours in the car, I cannot claim to have seen the whole of Cameroon. But I have a sense of what it is like in at least one small region. As in many African countries, the streets are very busy with shops, people, stalls, street food, farmers, cattle, police, military and petrol…
Mount Cameroon
Mount Cameroon is an active stratovolcano, it is the 31st most prominent mountain in the world and the 4th in Africa. It is also the 22nd most isolated mountain in the world, and a country highpoint. In short – it is a very interesting peak, and of course worth all the bureaucratic effort. Peter, Dave,…
Iberian Peninsula 2023
We land in Lisbon, Portugal at 5am and our next flight is at 7pm, so we have plenty of time to bag the peaks around here. The only problem is that many of them have already been climbed by Rob, me or both of us. However, we found one regional highpoint that neither of us…
London to Vilnius
Flying from London to Vilnius with a very short stop in Warsaw, Airlines has a one hour delay and there was a high chance that I would miss my flight to Vilnius. There wasn’t much i can change while on the plane, so I relaxed, looked out the window and took some pictures of cities…
Cabeço Raínha
Last peak planned for today, so we drove to the lower summit of Besteiros at 1080m to check out the views and a large black and white conical trig pillar. We then drove to the highest point where we found a huge concrete trig pillar (unfortunately impossible to climb) with two smaller ones on either…
Zibreiro
Fifth of six summits today, and the fifth drive up. We reached the summit on a reasonably good road. An auto-moto-peakbagger would be excited as he or she could touch the base of the trig pillar with a car. Perhaps that is why the trig pillar has been raised by two metres. And the lookout…
Povoínha
The good news about windmills is that one could almost always find the road. It might be private, closed or bumpy, but it will be a road. This time it was a good gravel road and soon we reached the top of Povoinha, which is surrounded by windmills and has a raised trig pillar. We…
Alvaiázere
We climbed the third peak today and again had a tarmac road all the way to the top. There was a windmill farm, a lookout tower and a trig pillar on a 2m tall plinth. It was nice to be able to climb the trig pillar as there was a ladder on one side. The…
Ourém
This legend tells the story of a Christian knight, Gonçalo Hermigues, who kidnapped a Moorish princess named Fatima on St John’s Day in 1158. The knight took her to a small village in Portugal and she fell in love with him and converted to Christianity, taking the name Oureana. As a reward for her conversion,…
Aire
The highpoint of the Santarém region in Portugal. Rob and I found that neither of us had bagged this mountain, so there were few arguments against visiting it. We checked previous reports and expected to have to leave our car a few miles early, but when we arrived we found a reasonably good road all…
West Africa 2023
Our plan for Equatorial Guinea fell through due to bureaucratic problems. So we quickly came up with a new plan in the same region that would include an ultra peak and not be a long trip, preferably something that could be done over a weekend and self-organised to avoid tour operators. São Tomé and Principe…
São Tomé Island
This island is very green, with a few sandy beaches, delicious food and friendly people, even if many of them carry machetes. Everything went very smoothly and easily in this tiny country. Hiring a car from the local hotel was a great experience; we got the keys at the airport and they asked us to…
Sameiro
This is the last peak of the trip, a small hill with communication masts and a dirt road. We left our car at one of the forks, although with a larger car it might be possible to drive all the way to the top (rough road). At the top we found a trig pillar, a…
Muquinqui
The storm had completely stopped by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain. We parked our car on the main road and walked up the almost perfectly formed spiral road to the top. We were able to take in all the surrounding views at least four times; twice on the way up and…
Pico Boa Entrada
Today is a short day and we have to catch a flight home sometime this afternoon. We chose a couple of peaks within easy reach of the airport. The first was Pico Boa Entrada. It’s not very high, but it has a nicely shaped volcanic crater. Our first attempt to get close to the slope…
Cantagalo
The last of today’s summits was relatively easy, but harder than expected. We tried to approach from the south-east, but were turned back by some gentlemen, so we drove around the southern peninsula and parked our car on the side of a rough forest track. A stronger car could have gone a few more kilometres,…
Lama Porco
Before the second summit of the day, we stopped for coffee at the lodge cafeteria, which has a beautiful sandy beach lined with palm trees. The drive through the potholes was worth every minute. From the cafeteria we could see tourists getting into small boats and heading for Ilhéu das Rolas. This small island lies…
Aida
We started our day trip to the south of the island with a short and easy hike to Aida Peak. We left our car at the oil palm plantation and walked along a rough road, greeting a few locals carrying breadfruit on their heads. One of them followed us and later explained that he lived…