As for the rest of the Dagestanis, they are left with potholed roads, derelict farms and factories, a polluted sea and a grim landscape dotted with houses half-built or half-ruined.

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"It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, pink, purple, orange, polka-dotted, from Mars, from the moon or any other place, " Wing-Kovarik said.

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Witnesses were hard to come by earlier on Monday across the neighborhood, dotted with houses that have barred or boarded-up windows, overgrown lawns and patchy roads in need of paving.

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But there is plenty for the less physically ambitious to do as well, including taking a walk through the Valley of the Moon near sunset (the salt rock formations can be heard popping and crackling with temperature swings), visiting flamingo-dotted salt lakes, swimming near the El Tatio geysers, or stargazing at Explora's own observatory.

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They came to cruise the remote spice islands in Indonesia, the dragon-dotted shores of Komodo, the scuba fantasyland of Raja Ampat, or simply to escape to Thailand and Burma.

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