Perhaps we'll rest our wings and walk the length of the island, along its coral-sand beaches. A thousand times brighter than Earth's timid little moon! And bright! Lit by the brilliant equatorial rings, the sky's indigo and the land's as light as a well-lit indoor room-colors are bright and clear. Warm, fragrant-many of the flowers in the island's lush forests are night-blooming. In the heart of the torrid zone, night's wonderful. now it's night-for five days more, of course, this being Venus. After a long sleep, waking up sore in the dusk, going for a swim, going back to sleep. If we're smart, we've timed it so we land near sunset. We land, exhausted, on lonely Manzan-Gurme. Ahead we see an island-a deep green whaleback 80 km wide, 120 long. We fly nonstop, to the limit of our endurance, and at last the cerulean sea beneath us pales to turquoise and reefs appear. Or Earth.) But never mind why we're ignoring tourist amenities! Just stick to nature and see where it gets us. Or a whole city! But let's stick to the landscape and ignore the artifacts of civilization-except for terraforming itself! Maybe we're athletes, maybe we're eco-religious and under vows, maybe we're cheap and don't want to pay for rooms (though if people still use money by this point, I'd bet against a habitable Venus. Someone will anchor a floating hotel in the middle of the Sedna Sea. but of course, it won't really be like that. You may have to.Īfter eight or nine full hours of nonstop flight over deep sea, no land in sight. But the spectacular and fragrant jungle canopy, reminiscent of Earth's Spice Islands, is popular with arboreal and flight-capable visitors, while the long beaches on all three sides, with coral reefs offshore, make Kostroma equally popular with species who like to swim.Īll travelers beyond Kostroma had better like to swim. I said a flyway to Eistla begins here on Kostroma, but it's not popular-for the next islet south is a long exhausting trip over open sea. One of the few parts of Ishtar that sticks into the torrid zone, Kostroma's downright steamy, though the sea winds relieve the heat a bit compared to the stifling inland jungles of, say, the Isle of Xquiq, 1000 km southeast. ![]() Kostroma is a 200-km strip of lush tropical forest on low hills. It's a few easy island-hops to Kostroma, the southernmost of the islands sheltering the Gulf of Belisama. ![]() ![]() Tropical hardwoods grow to great size, especially in south-facing valleys. Unlike most of Ishtar, and a harbinger of things to come, Cape Ariadne's quite warm and rainy. Ariadne is the start of the westernmost flyway to the Eistla Archipelago. Our tour takes off from three-headed Cape Ariadne, the southern tip of Ishtar, the arctic continent. Eistla is roughly pronounced "Aced law " on early maps of Venus it's often misspelled Eisila. The southern islands like Eistla itself, Sappho, and Pavlova, are cooler, drier, more Terran. Its northern islands, Bell, Tellus, and Kruchina, have some of the hottest, densest rainforest in the Solar System. Venus Unveiled homepage - new? prepare for shocks - map - peoples - gazetteer - glossary - more worlds? Planetocopia!Įistla is a continent-sized archipelago between Aphrodite and Ishtar, sprawling a third of the way around Venus. ![]() THE WORLD DREAM BANK: Venus Unveiled: Eistla, Bell and Tellus
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