Life, Love & Adventure

Mattso left Australia to travel the world and is now in Malta:

Viva Malta! That was the cry of the Maltese pirates before they stormed their enemy and sent them to Davy Jones Locker! haharrr...Well after a delayed flight from Rome, I finally clocked into my Maltese hotel around midnight. The plane was delayed for security reasons as the baggage count didn't match the number of passengers, so they made us all get off in groups of 8 and identify our bags! So 2 hours later we finally took off, and I had to thank the poor old hotel reception guy for staying up past his bed time to let me in :).

It has been all systems go as I started my first day tour of the Island this morning after clearing up a few arrangements (unfortunately they cancelled the Sicily excursion so I substituted a half-day look around Valetta instead). But first I must say, its been a pleasure getting back to a place where they drive on the left side of the road! And my hotel is right on the beachfront in Sliema, a gorgeous part of the coast which is kind of like a Mediterranean Scarborugh beach if you get the picture ;). Its been a joy listening to the waves crash against the limestone as I watch from my own personal balcony.

..After that we walked around some streets in a 'village' called Qrendi - there aren't any real villages left as they've all merged into the suburban sprawl, but these people remain territorial about their own patch of rock! The south of the island is largely agricultural and we found out that was because it used to be the haunt of the local pirates, a ruthless mob meant to be the most fierce in the Mediterannean, and nobody wanted to live near them, hehe.

We stopped into 'The Cave of Darkness' which isn't really dark, but is famous for its archeological discoveries of ancient fauna from the iceage. Did you know they used to have pygmy elephants here? Well, I didn't.. and lots of hippos, wolves, bears, foxes and deer too. In regards to more recent fauna, they like eating rabbit, and they still hunt song birds, but only for the black market which has some kind of folkloric notoriety about it, even so, you don't bring up the subject over dinner, hehe...

Mattso in Gozo