Author: Ms. R.

In downtown Manaus, the city considered the capital of the Brazilian Amazon, just one restaurant exclusively serves indigenous foods made by the rainforest’s native people. At Biatüwi, diners can enjoy fish stews, maniwara ants, and guaraná, which is juice traditionally extracted from the red Amazonian berry by using a local fish’s tongue as a grater. Run by a husband and wife, it is Brazil’s first official restaurant to serve only indigenous food and be owned by indigenous people—even though……

Read More

The town of Palm Beach sits on a barrier island, which as you may expect is mostly flat and sea level. However, the southwest corner of the Palm Beach Country Club sits on a mound of rock and coquina shell up to 200 feet tall. This may have resulted from deposits slowly building up from the intracoastal to the west and the ocean to the east, serendipitously converging at this spot. A few homes directly south of the golf……

Read More

A short walk from the Port of Bissau stands a large, fist-shaped sculpture known as the Mão de Timba (Hand of Timba). This monument along the Geba River commemorates a critical event in the history of Guinea-Bissau’s fight for independence. For centuries, the people of Guinea-Bissau lived under Portuguese colonial rule. Portuguese traders first showed up in the early 15th-century in what was then the kingdom of Kaabu, a region subordinate to the powerful Mali empire. In 1687, the……

Read More

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where in 2006 a massive haul of Doritos was shipwrecked, leaving its mark on the town forever. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet……

Read More

Visitors to McEwan Hall, the late 19th-century graduation site for Edinburgh University, might be forgiven for overlooking a work of art that is on full display and in public view. Without having previous knowledge of the sculpture’s existence, it’s easy to miss. For starters, the piece entitled: “The Next Big Thing… is a Series of Little Things,” by Susan Collis is located on the ground. It begins at the big wooden door, that was the original entrance to the auditorium,……

Read More

This illustrative bust was created by Henry Lion in 1927. The work of art is dedicated to Juan Bautista De Anza by the Native Sons of the Golden West and the Los Angeles Historical Society. A soldier and explorer, De Anza led the first Spanish settlers from the Mexican state of Sonora through Arizona and the San Carlos Pass far north to Monterey, California—a distance of some 1,700 miles. The expedition was actually two meandering trips that lasted several……

Read More

Go to any surfing beach today and you’d be hard-pressed not to find someone throwing a “shaka” hand—thumb and pinkie extended, three middle fingers curled against the palm. The iconic gesture, sometimes referred to as a “hang ten” or “hang loose,” has traveled far from its Hawai‘i origins. Today, American presidents, London nightclub goers, and even the emoji keyboard all sport the shaka hand. Saa Tamba, owner of Tamba Surf Company on Kaua‘i, has been throwing shakas his whole……

Read More

Just off the B940 road in the Kingdom of Fife, and not far from the village of Ceres, lies a stone marker in a field, which reads: “Vincenzo Lunardi – Born in Lucca, Italy, in 1759. He ascended in a hydrogen balloon on the 5th of October 1785 from the garden of Heriot’s Hospital, Edinburgh. He landed at Coaltown of Callange in the parish of Ceres, having traveled 46 miles. This was the first aerial voyage in Scotland.” Lunardi……

Read More

Named for the person who fought to get the site protected, the George W. Lund Petrified Forest originally contained large fossil logs fully as spectacular as any in the world. It was particularly remarkable because the site included fossil stumps in place. (The phrase “petrified” wood lives on in popular usage, but contemporary paleontologists just refer to “fossil” wood.) The area was once known as the Leadville Petrified Forest, but it was renamed in honor of George W. Lund……

Read More

This week, Gastro Obscura is looking at wondrous wintertime cocktails. Yesterday’s recipe was for Germany’s favorite flaming punch: feuerzangenbowle. After the warm glow of the festive season has left us, after we have overeaten, overspent, and overdone it, a mass culling of trees begins: 40 million of them across the U.S. and UK alone. For those of us who celebrate the Christmas holiday, we enjoy them for only a month or two before dragging them to the curb. Should……

Read More

This article is adapted from the December 11, 2021, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. When you work at Gastro Obscura, you get excited about some pretty niche topics. Obscure livestock? Yes, tell me more about this endangered, fuzzy pig. Someone is rescuing a forgotten fruit? That’s our jam. Archaeologists recovering amphorae of wine from ancient shipwrecks? Hell yeah. But there is one category that consistently delights me: how monks, nuns, and other……

Read More