Bora Bora and other repetitive but unique destinations
I, daughter of my time, also declare myself constipated from information. Since I was in Baden-Baden and crossed the gateway to the strange universe of destinations with double names, I have gone even more crazy. I spent my time looking for why someone would call a place 'Bathe Bath' twice. And although at first I thought they would have done it for the same reason that Barcelona became Barcelona (it was cooler, period) and Sao Paulo became Sampa for Paulistas... I have to admit that I was wrong.
In Baden-Baden this was done for the simple fact to differentiate it from other Baden much less glamorous of the time.
For 2 euro cents the answer, tell me destinations where the name is repeated twice. One two Three, reply again! The name game begins:
Baden Baden or 'Bathing Bathing'
BORA BORA
Taken over by high-net-worth travelers, middle-class manta rays and sharks, this atoll, part of French Polynesia, is another classic of the double name. A common fact in the Malayo-Polynesian languages that tend to reduplicate words to create the plural. The literal translation would be: Firstborn or Firstborn or rather, Firstborn (although if there are several, it is not the first... right?).
Bora Bora or 'Firstborn Firstborn'
PUKA PUKA
This atoll of the Tuamutu, in French Polynesia, is the most isolated. A redoubt of land that for many years was the only island in the Pacific that appeared on the maps. It was discovered by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl during his crazy Kon-tiki expedition with which he wanted to show that the inhabitants of these islands ( the pukapukanos ) came from South America. To do this, despite his childhood phobia of the sea, he jumped into the ocean from Peru on a six-person raft made of logs and branches and let himself be carried to Polynesia. Despite his incredible feat, anthropologists continued to believe that Polynesia was settled from west to east.
KWE KWE
The world capital of ferrochrome is this and it rises in the center of Zimbabwe. His name is a great onomatopoeia. There must have been so many frogs and they croaked so loudly that the name of the city referred to this sound diabolical that must flood their fields. Today the contamination of Kwekwe (thanks to the enormous work of its steel companies) has killed these animals and what is worse, they have killed the Kwekwe River, making the water unsuitable for irrigation or human consumption.
WALLA WALLA
Known for its tasty sweet onions and wineries, this Washington city also boasts the county jail (an homage to Sing Sing, perhaps?) . Trio of Aces, no doubt. Local authorities often insist that Walla Walla is "such a beautiful place that they baptized it twice". The natives (who have no authority) comment that the name comes from the Indian "place of many waters". I believe the latter.
Walla Walla, American American
BUDGE BUDGE
Is pronounced 'Boxwood Boxwood ' and it's in India, in the state of Bengal. It is a place of brutal economic takeoff in which the landscape changes continuously and in which, at the moment, the levels of arsenic in the water grow more than the income of its neighbors...
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