Tonga’s shifting magma; rebuilding an Oklahoma oasis; an (expensive) ice road; COVID and cruises; will your self-administered COVID test be accepted by airlines?
|  | Friday, January 21, 2022 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, the latest on Tonga’s shifting magma, rebuilding an Oklahoma oasis; an (expensive) ice road … and COVID and cruises. Also, will your self-administered COVID test be accepted by airlines? | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATILDE GATTONI | | By George Stone, TRAVEL Executive Editor
If you were to hunt down a steely-eyed, poncho-draped outlaw on horseback, where would you look? Tombstone, Arizona? Deadwood, South Dakota? Cody, Wyoming?
You almost certainly wouldn’t head to a windswept region in southeastern Spain. And yet that’s exactly where you would find your desperado—or at least the trail of ruin he left behind.
The Wild West lives on in southern Spain’s Almería province, where three faux 19th-century outposts near the village of Tabernas provided the backdrops for more than 170 movie Westerns, including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in The West (1968). Nowadays, these arid enclaves offer travelers a double-barrel shot of cinematic scenery and cowboy culture.
Reporter Matteo Fagotto tells the unlikely tale of how so many movies set in rugged regions of the United States ended up being filmed in Andalusia. “When Western productions discovered Almería in the 1960s, the province was one of the poorest in Spain,” he writes. “But production costs were extremely low and its inhabitants were skilled horsemen. They were ideal stuntmen and extras for the ‘spaghetti Westerns’ set on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.”
Turns out the ambiguous moral landscapes of these films—in which bounty hunters called the shots and good guys bit the dust—were perfectly matched by geographical landscapes that could be interpreted in a multitude of ways (indeed, they had been previously used in Lawrence of Arabia and Cleopatra).
“Our landscapes are very convenient. We have sea, desert, and snowy mountains all within a short distance,” says local producer Plácido Martínez. “We can serve as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and endless other natural settings.” | | | |
| French-Italian photographer Matilde Gattoni dug her spurs into the region’s lore to wrangle images that show the surprising afterlife of film sets that moonlight as tourist attractions. Her photos feel like little films, capturing cowboy shows with galloping horses, armed bandits, stagecoach shootouts, saloon slingers, cancan dancers, double-crossing villains, and ambivalent heroes.
Don’t come here expecting clarity on legends of the American West. In these ghost towns the truth is clear as mud.
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| | Brrr! Hoping to rejuvenate body and soul, a devout Russian Orthodox celebrant briefly submerges herself into the icy waters of Yekaterinburg. On Tuesday, the eve of Russian Orthodox Epiphany (according to the Julian calendar), thousands of Russians gather on frozen rivers and lakes to take a dip in the priest-blessed waters. This ceremony is believed to cleanse the soul of sins and protect the faithful from evil. According to Orthodox Christian tradition, this January feast day celebrates the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. Are you all set to suit up and dive in? This story may be for you. | | | |
| Eye on Tonga: The volcano giveth, and taketh away. A South Pacific island created just seven years ago from a growing undersea volcano is now gone after last week’s mighty eruption in the Kingdom of Tonga. “But whether it happens in weeks or years, the volcano will rise again,” Maya Wei-Hass writes in her examination of the aftermath—and the continual flow of the volcano’s subterranean magma system.
Will your COVID test fly for flying? Have you requested your free rapid COVID tests yet? If so, good. Just one important wrinkle: Not all self-administered tests are approved for travel. For starters, make sure your test is proctored, Forbes says. Check here to see if your test meets the criteria for travel.
Planning to motor west? In the early 1900s, the Threatt Filling Station near Luther, Oklahoma, was a safe place for Black travelers on Route 66 to fill up their tanks, grab a bite, and even catch a Negro League baseball game or concert. It closed in the 1970s and eventually fell into disrepair. Now the Threatt family is working to revitalize and preserve the property, Fast Company reports.
Slippery slope? A 37-mile highway made of ice that takes motorists across Minnesota to the northernmost point of the U.S. is open again. Drivers pay a $250 toll and are able to bypass Canada. With a maximum speed of 20 mph, it takes about two hours from start to finish. The ice road was created last winter when the border with Canada was closed to non-essential travel, CBS Minnesota reports. | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY M. DYLAN, EUROPA PRESS/GETTY IMAGES | | | COVID and cruises: Planning a cruise? Prepare for cancellations, vaccine mandates, testing, masking, and last-minute changes. Those who planned cruises months or years ago may find it difficult to navigate the new policies. Experts share some advice with Nat Geo. (Pictured above, health workers attend to a coronavirus outbreak aboard Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, docked in Spain.) | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY WANG GANG, VCG/GETTY IMAGES | | Remember paper maps and AAA TripTiks? Now digital mapmaking using GPS and artificial intelligence is taking their place, making travel safer for walkers, drivers, and divers, Sadie Dingfelder writes. This means scuba masks that guide you back to the dive boat; car windshields that show you safely through fog, and augmented-reality glasses that point out interesting features at historic sites. (Above, a traveler in Shanghai uses an augmented reality smartphone app to map the Bund historic district.)
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| This newsletter has been curated and edited by Monica Williams, Jen Tse, and David Beard. We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. | | | |
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