MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Falklands: The Complete Guide To The Falklands.

Since the war ended 20 years ago, the Falklands have been sold as a tourist destination. The campaign for travellers' hearts and minds intensifies with the first guidebook to islands that are so far away - 8,000 miles - yet so familiar.
The Independent - United Kingdom; Jan 19, 2002
BY WILL WAGSTAFF, SIMON CALDER AND CHARLIE FURNISS

EIGHT THOUSAND MILES - WHY?

To see some extraordinary landscapes, and to visit a place etched on many memories. The archipelago comprises two main islands, East and West Falkland, and more than 700 smaller islands. In total they cover an area roughly half the size of Wales, with a distance between the most easterly and westerly points of nearly 150 miles. Mount Usborne on East Falkland is the island's highest point at just over 2,000ft.

More than 2,000 people currently live on the Falkland Islands, the majority in the capital, Port Stanley (always truncated to Stanley). Although thousands of miles from the UK, the islands still feel very British, and are a dependent territory of the United Kingdom - which is what the war 20 years ago was all about. Argentina claims the islands as well, which lie 300 miles off its coast, and which it calls Las Malvinas.

THE MAIN ATTRACTION?

Wildlife. A common misconception is that the islands are wind-blasted and desolate. Although the weather can be cold and wet at any time of year (rather like Britain), the lasting memory is more likely to be of the deepest blue sea and sky, white sand and golden brown grassy heaths gently waving into the distance. The clear air brings distant mountains so close that one feels able to reach out and touch them. And for the wildlife enthusiast there are few better spots.

It is debatable who is the more curious, the young gentoo penguins pulling your shoelaces or the tussac birds inspecting your camera bag. Penguin colonies are fascinating places, real hives of activity. By mid-summer the adults returning from the sea are pestered by their young to be fed as soon as they reach the edge of the colony. Watching rockhopper penguins climbing the almost sheer cliff faces to get to their rookery at the top is totally enthralling, especially when a big swell is washing them back into the sea whenever they pause for breath.

The windy conditions and the lack of trees and other tall vegetation have created a unique environment, and thus unique flora and fauna. Five species of penguin breed on the islands, and in recent years a sixth has summered on Pebble Island to the north of the archipelago. Almost the first bird you see up