Tag: Blogs
- Dignitary, no. Prom queen, no. I’m just a photographer leaving the Tahitian island of Maupiti after being adorned in heis (Tahitian for leis) from the locals I met while following their va’a (outrigger canoe) team. The afternoon of my departure, while I’m packing and getting some last-minute shots, my friends come, one by one, to say goodbye with the heis they made that morning. Riding up the street on a bike is my new 90-year-old Tahitian grandma with a hei in her basket.
- DO: Carry your own toilet paper. Let’s get right to practicality. You never know where you might have to relieve yourself. Tissue — even in public restrooms — can be hard to find. DON’T: Be offended by open grins and frank stares. Filipinos are curious and friendly by nature, and many have never met foreigners up close. You are an alien, and they generally don’t put on airs. Just smile back, but don’t stare.
Serendipity can turn an already great trip into a truly memorable one. Yesterday we sailed into Amalfi, our trip’s final port of call, to find the city prettying up for Festa di Sant’Andrea. Twice a year, the town honors its patron saint, a fisherman, with a street festival that involves parading a larger-than-life gilded statue of him through the streets. When we sailed in, vendors were erecting stands on the waterfront from which to peddle a rainbow of gummy sweets, blocks of nougat bigger than my forearm, and o’per’ e o’muss’, a local specialty of veal snouts and feet marinated in juice from local Amalfi lemons.
Wales. It's all about castles and ancestries. That's what I thought until a stop in Burry Port, along the country's south coast, about an hour into our first day. We'd stopped here because when Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air in June 1928, the plane landed right here. It would be worth a look. Through a proud Welsh accent, peppered with lots of strange consonants shot from the roof of his mouth, Rhys Anthony stood on the pier and pointed to two beaches behind this centuries-old limestone wall. They total 15 miles in length. It's the start of the summer season here and on 15 miles of beach we saw fewer than a dozen people. But ...
I'm not wild about passion fruit. That is till tonight at 6 at the Sublime Samana Hotel, just outside Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic. The spirited bartenders at the beach bar surprised us with their special concoction -- a blend of rum and fresh passion-fruit juice served in a piece of the hollowed-out rind (aka my new favorite drink). They created it just for us...
The goal: To find aloha spirit on a plate. Tongue twister: At a country market in the center of the island, I buy what looks like a pineapple with chili powder. The vendor looks at me funny when I ask what the red powder is. “You know, sistah, leeheemoo-ee.” I walk away no wiser. Speaking in tongues: The next day at Ted’s, a famous North Shore bakery, the counter help talks to me in rapid-fire pidgin...
“I could hear the music before I could see the huge stage at the Old Fort. The echoing sounds guided me through the maze of streets that is Stone Town, Zanzibar, where the four-day festival Sauti za Busara — the Swahili name roughly translates to ‘sounds of wisdom’ — celebrates traditional African heritage through tribal dance and song...
“Bamboo is taking over St. Lucia. I’ve seen it used to make vases, chairs, walls and (hit the brakes!) bicycle frames. But nowhere does it get my attention like it does on the massage table at the Jalousie Plantation. Not the bamboo cabinets or the bamboo light shades, but the bamboo club in the hands of a masseuse named Lucita. ‘What have you been doing?’ she asks, rolling the bamboo over my hamstrings. I start to tell her, just as something kicks loose from my legs...
Three journalists share their mis-adventures while traveling around Cuba.JOE YOGERST: On assignment in Cuba, I rented a car and was driving from Moron to Santa Clara, and the map was unclear. It was late in the day and I was running low on gas. I picked up this young guy at a round-about, hoping he could give me directions. Right away he pointed at a road, and off we went. But as it started getting dark (and my gas needle kept dropping), I began to think I’d been duped. About 90 minutes out, we came upon this tiny village, where he asked me to stop: This was his home. He leapt out of the car without a word—wouldn’t tell me if I was even close to Santa Clara. I headed back to Moron, running on fumes and cursing my trickster hitcher the whole way.
JAD DAVENPORT: After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Cuba lost $6 billion in Soviet subsidies, and the public transportation system died. There were so few private vehicles and buses running between towns that people formed orderly queues at underpasses, offramps, etc. I stopped at an underpass outside Havana driving a Hyundai made for five small people. We crammed in 12. The cops waved me over and said, "Hey, you know it’s illegal to pick up hitchhikers?" I panicked; I was already in the country illegally...
