1. Question: What are some of the “things” or activities that the people of Mexico City do for fun?

Answer:

Historical Center

To see: National Palace, the Zocalo, Templo Mayor and the Metropolitan Cathedral, the place where past and present is touched. You will also see some of the main avenues, Reforma, Chapultepec and the Monumento a la Independencia, an unmistakeable symbol of Mexico’s capital.

2. Question: What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about Mexico City?

Answer:

Coyoacan

At the south of the city is Coyoacan, where headquarters of important educational institutions of Mexico are located, such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Autonomous Metropolitan University. The historical center of Coyoacan is the intellectual and bohemian neighborhood of the Mexican capital. There you find the “Frida Khalo” museum, a house that belonged to the Kahlo family since 1904 and in 1958 became a museum.

3. Question: Share some aspect of what Mexico City has contributed to the world.

Answer:

Xochimilco

You will see traditional chinampas, which are testimony of an ancient Mesoamerican agricultural technique, that was developed and shared by several towns of the Valley of Mexico.

The post Three Things About Mexico City appeared first on Traveling Archive.

For travelers and tourists who smoke, this may make traveling a hassle. Our latest T-Boy Society of Film & Music poll revealed international destinations members want to visit and why, but it’s essential to be aware of smoking-related laws and rules in these places to avoid getting into trouble in your travels. While Madrid may be a dream destination, for example, it’s worth noting that Spain banned smoking in public places like its beaches — so plan your travels accordingly. In this post, we’ll look at how smokers can deal with cigarette bans where they travel:

Pack smokeless products

Besides health reasons, non-smokers don’t respond well to the smoke and odor of cigarettes, which is why smoking bans are enacted. By that logic, e-cigarettes and other cigarette alternatives, such as vapes and heated tobacco products, also often fall under the smoking ban. Instead, look at smokeless alternatives that can help reduce cravings to smoke while traveling.

New-generation smokeless products include nicotine pouches. The selection on Prilla includes pouches from Velo, Zyn, Rogue, and On! Nicotine pouches are tobacco-free and sold in various types, flavors, and nicotine strengths. They have also become more accessible through online express deliveries, making them a popular option for smokers seeking alternative nicotine products.

Other smokeless products you can bring are Nicorette nicotine gums. Nicotine gums are one of the oldest forms of alternative nicotine products. Like the pouches, they offer small doses of nicotine — available in 2mg or 4mg variants — for smokers looking to reduce their nicotine intake. Nicorette is also a widely accessible brand with products available through supermarkets, convenience stores, and online retail stores.

Swap smoking for snacks

Another way to replace the sensation of smoking while traveling would be snacking instead of smoking. Packing healthy snacks with you can help reduce cigarette cravings and keep your mouth busy. Simple snacks like air-popped popcorn are also low in calories, so you won’t have to worry about unhealthy weight gain. Recent research from the University of Florida also indicates that chemical compounds in roasted coffee beans can help lighten the effects of morning nicotine cravings.

Some people also snack on foods that make smoking taste worse, such as cheese, fruit, and vegetables. Crunchy vegetables, in particular, help keep your mouth distracted. On the other hand, some foods shouldn’t be your go-to to stay smoke-free on your travels. Meat and alcohol can make smoking more satisfying and thus may trigger your craving for cigarettes. In fact, alcohol consumption has long been associated with cigarette cravings, so try your best to reduce drinking while traveling.

Ultimately, you wouldn’t want to get in trouble with authorities in your travel destinations for smoking where you shouldn’t. Remember to do your due diligence by researching smoking laws when planning travel. And if you’re in doubt, ask around for designated smoking areas if you’re visiting a country that doesn’t wholly ban cigarette use. Otherwise, our tips above for staying smoke-free on your travels will help you relieve cravings while still enjoying your travel experience. For more travel tips, insights, and stories, you can visit our Traveling Boy archives.

The post Traveling as a Smoker: How to Deal with Cigarette Bans appeared first on Traveling Archive.

A highly educated ethno-historian and archaeologist, she received her Bachelor in Business Administration from the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey; she first worked as a banker, before her true calling caused her to leave the business world.  She pursued a second Bachelor’s in Anthropology with a specialty in Archaeology and also took her Master’s in Ethnohistory, both from the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán; ultimately, she got her Doctorate in History, awarded by the Centro de Investigación de Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social.

Marina’s true love and her gift lay in the cultures of her native country and she revels in finding a way to share them with the world. Her contagious fervor for history and culture may well have filtered down to her from her grandfather, Porfirio Aguirre Dircio, a renowned archaeologist, who made the discovery of a remarkable turquoise-encrusted funeral mask, which was acquired by the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City; some dozen years ago, a scientific study was performed on the artifact and it was determined that the mask itself was likely from 300 AD and the decorative turquoise stones were likely added in 900 AD, cementing the validity of his find and his name.

Among other inspirations, it was her grandfather’s appetite for knowledge regarding the Spanish traditions of 19th century Mexico and its history and culture that imbued her with her fervor; it was because of his influence, she says, that as a child, she painted her bedroom with a cosmos reflecting pre-Colombian art. She is quick to point out on her guided tours, the abundant, colorful murals, painted by artists who may not even be able to read. She underscores that their fiery spirit is entrenched in their artistic output and she tries to convey that zealousness to her groups. “It is very important to me to share this vibrant artwork, in these magical villages.  Art lives in people as well as in artifacts and I want to convey that concept on my tours — by experiencing historic city or village centers, going to charming restaurants, visiting private studios and artists’ ateliers, and in every way we can, soaking up the local culture.”

Marina says she has had hundreds of participants on her tours, and many, many are repeat customers, so enthralled are they with her insider-y and informative excursions and by her infectious warmth and kindness. With the tour size restricted to 16 (so that the group fits comfortably in a minivan, which is about as a large a vehicle as she and her driver like to take into small towns with narrow streets), the groups are intimate and collegial. And her journeys are priced extraordinarily reasonably, always including centrally located hotels (with breakfast—and the amenities that she knows are vital today, including Wifi) and some additional meals, transfers, museum admissions, and so on. Participants are free to dine most evenings on their own and, of course, gratuities and incidentals are not included.

“Wherever we went, Marina knew all the locals, even the mayor, and so you share a very welcoming experience, and you also travel to places where you are the only tourists!” So remarked Anne Frej, a veteran — along with her husband, Bill — of several of Marina’s tours; the Frejs are seasoned global citizens, having lived overseas for nearly 30 years, while Bill was a diplomat working for the US Agency for International Development. As a veteran traveler, Anne’s comments are all the more weighty, as she acknowledges what a special experience it is to travel with Marina. “Needless to say, in any foreign country, it’s always best to travel with a native. Because Marina is both an anthropologist and a historian, and is knowledgeable and passionate about the cultures of Mexico, her commentary is rich and detailed. Additionally, she puts an enormous amount of effort into her trips, picking out ideally situated hotels, making perfect suggestions for restaurants, and taking the group to interesting artists’ and craftsmen’s workshops.”

The Frejs will be taking off again with Marina in the fall, when she leads a trip specifically designed for the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, which is offering a singular journey, México Mágico: Magical Mexico City, created specifically for the Friends of the Folk Art. This is but one of Marina’s custom-crafted excursions which she designs for groups with very particular interests — in addition to her regular offerings — working closely with an organization and catering to its members’ unique interests. (Marina also does private tours for as few as four, or even two, people.) One such recent trip was for the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, which focused on architecture and church design.

Monroe Warshaw, a New York City-based drawings dealer, recently did back-to-back trips with Marina and has signed up for yet another this fall. “Marina manages to time her trips to take in so many interesting, fascinating local festivals — like the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) — in Oaxaca. It is a spectacular event, with the entire town remembering deceased loved ones, and characterized by joy, not sadness.” Indeed, the Day of the Dead is a colorful, carnival-like happening, with residents preparing for it weeks ahead of time — with all of the town creating souvenirs, costumes, masks, and religious artifacts, for use in the festival parade, for sale, for show.

Among Marina’s upcoming journeys for the fall and into 2018 are the following:

Querétaro & San Luis Potosí (Sept 28-Oct 6)

This tour, which Marina refers to as “nine mystical days,” focuses on the magic of the indigenous people in Mexico’s ancestral culture. Tequisquiapan, a mere two hours from Mexico City, is becoming a popular weekend getaway destination.  It features architecture that is an unusual blend of colonial and indigenous styles and its cobble-stone streets are dotted with interesting shops offering native jewelry, various wicker-work items, and folk art. Home to Bernal’s Peak, the largest monolith in México (and the third largest in the world), is the Pueblo Magico, Villa de San Bernal, which also has charming shops selling dolls and handsome woolen products. Xilitla, surrounded by an exquisite rainforest landscape, is home to the Nahuatl and the Teenek, both indigenous peoples who still practice many of their traditional ways; it is also home to the 80-acre Las Pozas sculpture garden. San Luis Potosí, steeped in history, played a seminal role in the Mexican Revolution, and is rife with exquisite colonial architecture, parks, and an active cultural scene. Real de Catorce, once a thriving silver mining town in the high desert, is now a “‘ghost town” with a population of around 1,000; it continues to be a pilgrimage site for the Huicholes and is thought to be a place of power with a spiritual energy.

Oaxaca and Puebla for Day of the Dead (Oct 27-Nov 4)

Oaxaca is a unique, lively colonial city where two major cultures come together, the Mixtec and the Zapotec, both inspirational.  Oaxaca is rich in the native alebrijes, fanciful, colorful creatures, traditionally papier-maché, but here, they are carved from wood.  The city is rich in flavored mezcal and heady with the aroma of chocolate. The local markets sell brightly-hued textiles and the shops and pushcarts will feature countless artifacts and trinkets relating to the Day of the Dead… even black-and-white marshmallow-like candies. The trip also includes visits to some remarkable architectural sites.

Carnival in Chiapas (February 6-14, 2018)

Chiapas is alive with rainbows of pigment everywhere — and it pulsates spirituality and culturally, and is graced with wonderfully warm citizens. “The first time I visited Chiapas, I fell in love with it,” comments Marina. “Since then, I have been showing all the unique places in the area to my tour participants.  I love sharing this region.” The tour takes in four archaeological sites with incomparable beauty: Edzná, Palenque, Bonampak, and Yaxchilán. Carnival is experienced in four indigenous villages: Zinacantán, Huixtán, Tenejapa, and San Juan Chamula. In addition, there are museums to visit that specialize in textiles, traditional medicine, archaeology, and history. Among other highlights is the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, a stunning colonial city, as well as a visit with a family in the Lacandona jungle, providing an opportunity to learn about lives that are likely diametrically unlike yours.

The Monarchs (Feb 24-Mar 4, 2018)

This is perhaps Marina’s most popular trip—and it is not about kings and queens. In early fall, each year, millions upon millions of Monarch butterflies leave southern Canada and the United States and head to the central highlands of Mexico, traveling well over 2,500 miles.  After their November arrival, they winter in Mexico and turn around in March, and return north by July.  In order to protect the butterflies, the region in Mexico that the Monarchs call home for several months has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Four generations of Monarchs are involved in a round-trip migration.  This trip includes a visit to three different sanctuaries at the famed Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a trip to the colonial city of Morelia, visits to five pueblos mágicos, experiencing their architecture, textiles, and flavors.  There are also visits to Lake Pátzcuaro, the Paricutin Volcano, and to local folk artists.

The Textiles of Oaxaca & Chiapas / Reflections in Diversity: Exploring Culture through Textiles (June 16-26 and July 14-24, 2018)

Due to an anticipated high demand for this new experience, Marina is offering two tours next year with a focus on clothing and textiles. Both include visits to Oaxaca and Chiapas; the visits to these two cities will be similar, save that the festivals experienced with each tour will be different.  There will be marketplace and gallery visits, trips to two distinctly different colonial cities, with a focus on textiles, dyes, spinning, and weaving styles — and each visit will include a hands-on experience, so that participants will have an opportunity to actually weave a personal textile. Villages that are but a few miles apart often have vastly diverse and very particular cultures, reflected in the colors and styles of their clothing and textiles. And on the other hand, as Marina points out, “Although they live hundreds of miles apart and belong to two different cultures, Zapotec and Mayan, have many similarities in their textiles; the differences will be in the way they create their own worlds through their designs.”

In Marina’s words: “Even though the women spend hours and hours working at home weaving masterpieces of high quality and sublime beauty, most of these pieces are sold for almost nothing. Your valuing the pieces and the time it takes to weave them is a great opportunity to give to the ladies hope and strength. They will be able to continue to preserve a treasure that has been in danger for generations.”

THE DETAILS:  marinainmexico.com; 011 52 (999) 923 0870;

ma********@ho*****.com

Marina Aguirre de Samaniego
Calle 74 A no. 484 B between 55 and 57 / Col. Centro, Mérida, Yucatán / México

The very reasonably priced Marina in Mexico Tours are usually nine to eleven days; they range in approximate price from US $1,300 to $2,000 and include all lodging (based on double occupancy); breakfast in the hotel; transfers to and from the airport; in-tour transportation; and some meals.  However, participants should plan on the additional cost of most meals, gratuities, laundry, phone calls, and miscellaneous.

© Ruth J. Katz 2017  All Rights Reserved

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I had it all wrong. U.S. Government warnings have repeatedly alerted us to watch our backs in Mexico. Yet La Paz (“The Peace”) experiences only a fraction of the robbery, rape, assault and murder found in most US cities, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In fact, it’s so safe that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman made La Paz his hideout. The real question: what is Mexico doing letting us reckless Americans into their county? With ten universities, statistics also indicate that La Paz is the most educated and affluent city per capita in all of Mexico.

Once a sleepy fishing village nestled along the protected waters of Southeast Baja Sur, La Paz was put on the radar when immortalized by John Steinbeck in his novella, “The Pearl” in 1947. Sportspeople journeyed from around the globe for the deep sea bounty of marlin, Dorado, roosterfish and yellowtail. This component of tourism is still very much alive today, and so are snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, and eco-tours. For lovers of sea life, it is the dream of all dreams.

My first day was spent snorkeling with sea lions and whales, just off Isla Espiritu Santo, followed by a catered picnic lunch of local seafood at Espiritu Santo Beach. After an afternoon of kayaking and more swimming, the Fun Baja boat tour cruised over to a native bird estuaries. The days after it was tours of historical attractions, which allowed a deep understanding of La Paz itself. The Los Pacenos were just as excited to see our pack of U.S and Canadian journalist as we were to see them. Like Mexico itself, the local citizens have graciousness and hospitality in their DNA.

Despite the fact that La Paz is the capital city of Baja California Sur with a population of 220,000 it still maintains the charm of ‘Old Mexico,’ with quaint shops, museums, galleries, markets and restaurants serving indigenous food. But if you want action, there’s a dazzling nightlife with cafes, clubs and bars. Plus if you desire to take it to a higher party level, Los Cabos on the southern-most tip of Baja Sur, is just a scenic two-hour drive away.

What to Eat

The Baja is the birthplace of the fish taco, served with the above mentioned fresh seafood caught that very day by local boats. The chocolate clam gets its name from the shell’s brown color, and is eaten alive with a twist of lime. If the clam doesn’t flinch after a lime twist, it’s best to move on to the next one on your plate. Another treat is the hotdogueros, a La Paz hot dog, wrapped in bacon and topped with grilled onions, jalapeno ketchup and peppers. This should be all washed down with a Baja-style cerveza – beer on ice with lime juice and a salt rimmed glass. The beer of choice? Baja California’s own Tecate, of course.

Where I Stayed

CostaBaja Resort & Spa redefines luxury. The centerpiece of the 550-acre CostaBaja development, it is the first 5-star resort in La Paz. The resort is just ten minutes from downtown, set on the Sea of Cortez overlooking a 250-slip double-basin marina and a white sand beach. What was I doing there? The 115-room hotel offers a selection of ocean, mountain, marina and golf course views.

Mexico’s only Gary Player-designed 18 hole golf course meanders from hilltops to sea level with stunning water views just steps from the resort. Built into the landscape, as opposed to the opposite, this very ‘green’ course only utilizes desalinated water. The resort is also home to Steinbeck´s restaurant, and the first spa in La Paz, which features locally-inspired treatments. A dip in one of the three luxurious pools is not a bad way to end a day of activities.

Retirees and Real Estate

By 2021 as many as two million foreign retirees have made Mexico their home, according to the Mexican Federal Tourism Ministry. CNN Money Magazine and the New York Times recently named La Paz one of the top ten places in the world to retire. Mainland Mexicans, Canadian and US tourist are visiting La Paz in droves, then buying second homes or becoming full-time residents. For American retirees, a Yankee pension goes a long way in Mexico. Come to think of it, maybe I should consider retiring there, too

The post Finding Peace in La Paz – The World’s Aquarium on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez appeared first on Traveling Archive.

People and art have long been a recurring theme in Deb Roskamp’s photographic studies. In The People & Art of Guadalajara, Ms. Roskamp explores the relationships between the Mexican people and the great plazas, cathedrals, architecture and sculptures of Guadalajara. Considered to be the most Mexican of Mexico’s cities, Guadalajara has long been a favorite domestic tourist destination for families throughout the nation. Ms. Roskamp captures the joy, excitement and spirit of Mexicans as they experience the city’s great art, and thus become part of the artistic landscape themselves.

The People of Guadalajara was photographed over a weeklong period while Ms. Roskamp was enrolled in Spanish language studies at IMAC.

Below are copyrighted photographs by Deborah Roskamp. You can look but you may not steal. Click on the photos for enlargements. For hi-res images, please write to: de*@tr**********.com

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Owner Marques Flores marched around our table pointing out historic dishes on El Charro Café’s menu. “Order these three items and it will be like eating at my own home.” Who was I to disagree for authentic is what I desired, and the café was already overwhelmed with tantalizing fragrances of the day’s cooking. Mr. Flores is the great grandnephew of El Charro Café founder, Monica Flin. Known among friends and families as Tia Monica, she established the iconic El Charro Café in 1922, making it the oldest Mexican restaurant in continuous operation by the same family in the U.S.

I should add, the style of cooking is actually referred to as Arizona-Sonoran Cuisine with a Tucson interpretation. Tucson itself; the first city in the U.S. to be honored with the Capital of Gastronomy designation by UNESCO Creative Cities.

Happy diners at El Charro Cafe, a mix of tourists and locals. Photo courtesy of Deb Roskamp.

But why Tucson? Jonathan Mabry, historic preservation officer for the City of Tucson, thinks he may have the answer.

“It all starts with our deep and multicultural food history. There’s so much innovation in all parts of our food system, including sustainable agriculture and ranching, plus the development of an innovative urban agriculture scene. For example, Tucson amended our land use code to make it easier to do agriculture within city limits and to sell those products.”

Owner Marques Flores, the great grandson of Tia Monica. Photo courtesy of Deb Roskamp.

The story of El Charro Café

Tia Monica arrived in Tucson via France in the 1800s, when her father Jules, a famous stone mason, was commissioned to build the city’s pristine St. Aug ustine Cathedral. Jules, whose signature work can be seen throughout Tucson’s Historic District, also built the family’s residence in 1896, which is where the original downtown El Charro Café first sat. Today, the flagship El Charro Café rest across the street from the Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón, the original fortress built by Spanish soldiers during the 18th century, the founding structure of what became the city of Tucson. It’s an essential stop before or after lunch at El Charro Café.

Our lunch was soon on our wooden table in the warmly decorated dining room, surrounded by family photographs, paintings, colorful hats, and historic fixtures. The diners consisted of in-the-know Tucsonan locals and tourists alike.

El Charro Taco. Photo courtesy of Deb Roskamp.

First up: ORIGINAL “CHARRO STYLE” BEEF TACO

In 1922, when Tia Mónica started, there was only one way to make a taco: form a carne seca beef patty, fold it in a tortilla and fry it in a pan, garnish with peas, radishes, and Mexican cheese.

Carne seca (“dried meat” in Spanish) is akin to jerky, where drying strips of venison and buffalo was a common preservation method in the arid borderlands before the arrival of the Spanish. But the new settlers brought their own similar technology along with domesticated cattle. To keep beef beyond the day of butchering, the Tucson pioneers dehydrated it in thin slices, which they then brought back to life by boiling, dry-baking and pulverizing. The carne seca tacos served at our table had a bit of snap, crackle and pop, which my tablemates did not appreciate. For me, it was divine.

Carne Seca Recipe

Serves: 8 to 10
Ingredients

• 3-pound eye of round or boneless shoulder chuck roast
• 3 tablespoons vinegar, preferably white
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons fresh-ground black pepper
• 10 garlic doves, sliced
• 1 tablespoon ground dried mild red chile, preferably ancho, New Mexican, or Anaheim
• 8 cups water
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon ground dried mild red chile, preferably ancho, New Mexican, or Anaheim
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• ¾ cup chopped roasted mild green chiles, preferably poblano, New Mexican, or Anaheim, fresh or frozen
• 2 small tomatoes, preferably Roma or Italian plum, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican
• Salt to taste (optional)
• Lime wedges, for garnish

Gourmet Magazine named El Charro Café, “One of America’s 21 Most Legendary Restaurants.”

BIRTHPLACE OF THE CHIMICHANGA

No city wants to be more associated with the Chimichanga than Tucson. The city’s tourism office actually published an ad in the nationally circulated Food & Wine magazine, inviting Americans to visit Tucson, “home of the chimichanga.”

Chimichanga, or “chimi,” has achieved cult-like status in Tucson where residents take their chimis very seriously and prefer large, overstuffed versions. Every restaurant and eatery have its own version of this favorite dish. But many consider El Charro Café’s the best and most authentic. – Source: Food Timeline.

Family legend says that Monica Flin in 1928 accidentally dropped a stuffed beef burrito in a pot of boiling oil. She immediately shouted some profane expletives, but noticed younger family members in the kitchen, and abruptly changed the swear word to “chimichanga,” the Spanish equivalent of “thingamagig.”

There is no doubt that Tia Monica knew how to tap into her own creativity and quickly adapt in the kitchen. It was those skills that propelled the success of subsequent family owners. I’ve noticed many famous dishes were created by mistake, i.e., dried cornflakes, crepes suzette and even popsicles.

Chimichanga. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

El Charro Café’s Chimichanga Recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients

Tortillas

• 6 flour tortillas (12 to 14 inches)

Filling

• About 1 1/2 quarts salad oil
• 2 firm-ripe avocados (about 1/2 pound each)
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 (16 ounce) can red chili or enchilada sauce
• 3 cups shredded lettuce (iceberg and/or romaine) and/or red cabbage
• 2 cups (about 1/2 pound) shredded jack and/or Cheddar cheese
• Sour cream
• Tomato or fruit salsa

Instructions

1. Lay 1 tortilla flat. Fold 1/3 up over center. Spoon 1/6 of the filling across the doubled portion, leaving a 2-inch border at each end. Roll tortilla once, fold in ends, then roll snugly to enclose filling. Secure seam with toothpicks. Repeat to fill remaining tortillas.
2. In a 5- to 6-quart pan (at least 10 inches wide) or 14-inch wok over high heat, bring about 1 inch oil to 360 degrees, adjust heat to maintain temperature.
3. Using a wide metal spatula, lower 1 chimichanga at a time into hot oil, filling pan without crowding. Fry until golden on all sides, turning occasionally, 6 to 8 minutes total per chimi. Transfer to a towel-lined 10- x 15-inch pan. Keep warm in a 225 degree F oven. Repeat to fry remaining chimichangas.
4. Meanwhile, peel, pit, and thinly slice avocados. Moisten slices with lime juice. In a 1- to 11/2-quart pan over medium heat, warm chili sauce; pour into a small bowl.
5. Line a platter or plates with lettuce. Remove toothpicks from chimis and place, seam down, on lettuce. Sprinkle chimis evenly with 1 cup cheese and garnish with avocado. Serve with remaining cheese and the chili sauce, sour cream, and salsa, to taste.

As we finished our meal, Marques Flores explained that Tia Monica was the coolest, strongest person in the family. If there were obstacles, she conquered it. She demonstrated courage, determination, and a love of food. All these characteristics have been inherited and perfected by the three generations of her family, making El Charro Café a mandatory food-heaven pilgrimage when visiting Tucson.

Visit El Charro Café – Regular Menu

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Our road trip to Mexico was months in the planning and preparation. Planning was important since we were driving to the Yucatan Peninsula and back. It was me mostly that put everything together because, well, that’s what I do. I’m an organizer. I don’t like to plan every part of a trip. I like to keep things fluid as far as where we are going and what we are going to do. I do, though, like to be prepared for anything that may come up. I think that comes from my 32 years of experience a firefighter and rescuer. In our preparation we had to get all the required documentation, insurances (auto and medical) and permits (Temporary Import Permit and Tourist Card). We exchanged dollars for pesos, so we had plenty of spending money. We prepared our 2000 Toyota 4Runner for the long trip by replacing belts and hoses, brake work, changing fluids, and installing a new rooftop cargo-carrier. Since we were bringing our 6-month-old Labradoodle, Koda, with us, we needed to make sure he had all of his shots. We also got him listed as a Service Dog to help get him in hotels and other areas. We were ready! It all paid off. Our trip to the Yucatan Peninsula went smoothly. We traveled 6,500 miles in 28 days. We visited many different cities and towns along the way: Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Merida, Chihuahua, Tulum. We saw missions, flamingos, Mayan ruins, markets, stunning beaches, colonial towns, artisan crafts, and musicians. We were on our way back north. In fact, we were far into northern Mexico by this time. It was day number twenty-four and the three of us had already traveled over 5,100 miles. That morning, we left our hotel in Saltillo with plans to put some big miles behind us. We were both getting anxious to be home. It was a rewarding trip but stressful with a 55-pound, 6-month-old puppy with us. After about 75 miles on Hwy. 400, we saw a road sign that said Rute de Vino. We recognized this sign from frequenting the Valle de Guadalupe wine region in Northern Baja, Mexico. Except, when we looked around, there was nothing but a desert filled with sand, brush, cactus, and Joshua Trees. No vineyards, nor were there any structures that might be wineries. Why is this sign in the middle of the desert? Curious, Sheri started looking on her phone to see if there were any wineries around. What she found was that, up ahead a few miles, there were some wineries, which included The Oldest Winery in the Americas. This was a significant find, so we made a left turn towards the town of Parras after putting the location of the winery on Google Maps. We had great luck up to that point using Google Maps to direct us to towns or find hotels, restaurants, or other landmarks. There was great cell service through a T-Mobile service plan that works throughout Mexico so we were able to use our map program constantly. For the first time in the trip, though, Google Maps led us astray.

We followed the directions it gave us. We were heading in the right direction, but we were going farther than where we thought it was located. Along the main road, we saw a beautiful property with a white plaster wall all around it. There were guards at the entrance gate and people lined up to enter. We couldn’t tell what it was exactly, and there were no signs, but we thought about returning later to figure out what it exactly was. But for now, we are searching for something else. At one point, the directions turned us into a dirt road that winded back the way we came through a small neighborhood, along some agricultural area and through a gate, into a vineyard. We asked a guy on a motorcycle if we were going the right way. He pointed us to turn right up ahead but when we got to that turn, a security guard denied our passage and we had to turn back. So much for Google Maps! We retraced our path back to the main road again and decided to go check out the town of Parras.

It was tough finding a place to park on the streets of Parras that was close to the centro. We ended up parking about seven blocks away and walking with our dog Koda around the town until we ended up in the central square. It was pretty crowded. It was a Sunday, the day when the locals go to church and spend time with their families. We didn’t mind the crowds, but it was a challenge trying to walk our six-month-old, 55-pound, high energy, inquisitive dog around; so many people. He wanted to meet everyone and sniff everything, so he was constantly pulling on his leash. But we were able to check out more shops and look around before we moved on.

We headed back to the highway and to that property we had passed with the white plaster walls around it. When we pulled up to the property, we still could not find a sign stating what the place was. We asked the guard what it was, and he told us it was Casa Madero, The Oldest Winery in the Americas. El Dorado, paydirt; we have arrived!

The guard directed us to the parking lot and instructed us to walk back to the gate he was guarding to enter Hacienda San Lorenzo, the property where the winery is located. He also said that dogs were allowed which is something we always needed to hear. We parked on what was a landing strip for light planes. Apparently, it is only used occasionally by the family that owns the property, but normally used as a parking lot for guests. As we arrived at the main gate, we were given a squirt of hand sanitizer and then took our temperature. They asked if we were feeling ill or had been around anyone with Covid 19. This was all standard practice in Mexico during the pandemic. Our experience had been that Mexico takes the pandemic very seriously. Especially when it comes to dealing with tourists. We passed the tests and were directed to enter the property. We were immediately taken aback by the beauty of the property. Large grass lawns, Spanish-style buildings, lots of large, mature trees, and many yard ornaments from days long ago. We walked up to a building where they had wine tasting and sales. We could go in, but we could not do a wine tasting or join a tour because we did not have a reservation. Reservations were necessary to keep the number of people to a safe level for social distancing. These are things one gets used to after a year of dealing with a pandemic.

As we toured around the area, we were approached by a young man who greeted us in English. His name was Christian and he worked at the winery. Apparently, he was informed that some Americans were on the property, so he came to meet us and practice using his English. “We don’t get many visitors from the U.S.,” he told us. He wanted to know where we were from and where we were traveling. He was very surprised when we told him that we were on our way back from driving to the Yucatan Peninsula. He apologized that we could not do a wine tasting or go on the wine tour, but said he would check with his boss to see if he could show us around the property. He left to get permission and returned with the approval. He brought with him a young woman, Helena, who also worked at the winery, and spoke English. She came along to help and used the opportunity to practice her English, too. The private tour included some of the original buildings where the wine was made over one hundred years ago. In those rooms there was much of the old equipment for wine making, such as grape presses and bottling machines. Some of the old wooden casks and vats were still in place as they were when they held wine so many years ago. But they use parts of the buildings for the wine they make now as well.

One thing that I found interesting was the history of Hacienda San Lorenzo and Casa Madero Winery. After the Spanish crown claimed Mexico in 1519, the Spanish conquerors explored the extremely large country for many years. In 1568, Valle de Parras was discovered and found to be an oasis in the desert that had naturally growing grapes. Since wine was an important staple of the Spanish culture, it was decided to start developing wine production. But to do that, Don Lorenzo Garcia requested a “Merced” to receive an endowment of the land and a permit to start producing wine and brandy. It was granted by King Felipe II in 1597making it the first official winery in the Americas. Part of the property tour included walking through a couple of courtyards within the main buildings, lined with guestrooms. We were told that when the Madero family used to live on the property, the rooms used to be for the owner’s guests. Presently, they are only used for guests that were part of group events like weddings that they host occasionally. Their plans were to start using the rooms as a hotel where any guest could stay but they weren’t quite ready for that yet. They showed us one of the rooms in the larger of the two courtyards and we were impressed at the simple but authentic décor. They were roomy, bright, and colorful. Sheri’s eyes lit up and she asked “Can we stay here tonight?” You see, we had no plans for the night. Just like most all the nights on our trip, we just made a decision during the day of where we were going to stop for the night and looked for a place to stay, either via the Internet or by driving around. The question Sheri asked our two tour guides caught them off guard. They weren’t sure how to respond except to say, “We’re not sure, we’ll have to ask”.

After we finished the tour, we were escorted back to the wine store and we were told they would be back shortly. I took the opportunity to buy a bottle of 2018 Syrah that was recommended to us by Christian when I asked him what he preferred. Within a short time, the two returned with good news. They were going to let us stay the night. Not only that, but they were going a provide dinner that night and breakfast in the morning, as well as a private wine tasting since we were not able to have one earlier. Part of the reason they were allowing us to stay was that they hoped we would share our experience with others in the U.S. and advance their efforts to open up as a hotel. We were ecstatic! We had to wonder how many Americans have had the opportunity to stay at The Oldest Winery in the Americas. We were shown a couple of rooms to choose from that were ready for guests. We liked them both but we picked our favorite. They directed us where to move our car into a secure parking.

It was 5 pm by the time we got into our rooms. They told us to be ready for dinner by 6 pm so we unpacked, showered, and dressed in the nicest clothes we brought with us in preparation for the experience. And, an experience it was!

When 6 pm arrived, we went down the walkway a short distance to the registration office to find out where to go for dinner. We met up with Helena and she told us it would be ready soon, but in the meantime, we were to go with her. She led us to the smaller courtyard where we sat on a couch and chatted with her awhile. Shortly after, more of the staff arrived to greet us and we were introduced to the chef who was making our dinner. Jose Gabriel Villela is a French-trained pastry chef who was the head chef that day. He told us about the plans for dinner and wine pairing they had planned for us.

Soon, Helena led us to where we were to have our dinner. We walked from the small courtyard and entered one of the dining rooms but when we looked around, there was nothing set up for us. We were ushered through the dining room and out the door on the far side of the room to the back side of the property. This area was as beautiful as the rest of the property inside Hacienda San Lorenzo. There was a very large grass area with mature trees and a round white and blue fountain that led to a channel running into a pool. There were two rock towers on both side of the pool.

As we continued, we looked to our distant right and saw a round table with white linens and two dinner settings, including china, utensils, water and wine glasses, cloth napkins, and a vase of flowers … the works. Next to the table were two of the staff we met and a smaller serving table. We were overwhelmed. “We get to eat out here?” I exclaimed. We were seated on one side of the table so we could see the beautiful grounds in front of us. The temperature was perfect and the rays from the lowering sun were shining through the tall eucalyptus trees along the far wall. It was surreal to say the least. Certainly, very unexpected.

The attending staff explained to us that we would be experiencing a multi-course meal with wine pairing, dessert, and a private wine tasting later in the evening. As our first glass of wine was being poured, our anticipation grew. The experience was magical. Sitting outside in the beautiful setting of Hacienda San Lorenzo, being catered to by a wonderful staff, having courses prepared by a trained chef, and drinking excellent wine was much to take in. Sheri and I kept looking at each other in utter disbelief.

Our meal started off with a pallet-cleansing dish of blueberries with mandarin vinegar and geranium leaf sorbe’. That was accompanied with a 2019 Chardonnay that was crisp and lightly citrus. It did not have the typical oaky or buttery notes due to sitting only in stainless steel containers. That was followed up by a salad and then the main dish of chicken mole with polenta and roasted vegetables. We enjoyed a 2018 Merlot with the main course that had notes of leather and dark berries. Often, we expect a white wine served with chicken, but red wine was perfect with the mole sauce. Dessert was fantastic, which was no surprise since it was being prepared by a French-trained pastry chef. Jose Gabriel actually made us two desserts. The first one being a peach carrot cake with cream cheese drizzle topped with walnuts and a slice of peach. The second dessert (like we needed another one) was a semi-sweet chocolate cake served with coffee ice cream, cinnamon-sugar flour tortilla strips, and some chocolate-covered espresso beans and nuts. Everything was remarkable and quite decadent! When we finished dinner and were given some time to sit and enjoy the setting sun and finish our wine, we were escorted to a large dining room with a beautiful heavy wood table and chairs many decades old. This is where Gabriel served our private wine tasting. It started with a 2020 Rose’ that was dry and light, but not sweet like a Rose’. Next was a 2018 Malbec-dry with notes of tobacco and ripe fruit. Our last taste was a 2017 organic Cabernet that had a nose and flavor of plum and ripe fruit with a pepper finish. All good drinkable wines, with the latter my favorite.

At 7 am the next morning, Juan served breakfast in the dining room. We had a simple meal of buñuelos, fruit, cheese enchiladas with sauce, beans, and coffee. After a quick meal, we headed to the parking lot to a tour vehicle that would take us around to the property outside the walls to see the vineyards are. Christian and Fernanda conducted the tour for us. We drove around the vineyards that seemed to go on for miles. They explained how the older vines were grafted with European rootstock but more recent vines with California root stock. We drove up to a high point on the property to bask in the views from a higher vantage point, then headed back to the hacienda so we could pack up in preparations for our departure.

There were still a few days of driving ahead to get home and we wanted to put some miles in before dark. When we got back to the hacienda, we packed up our things in the room, placed our luggage in the 4Runner, and said our goodbyes. We thanked them for everything they did for us and talked about organizing a group to visit soon. I told them I would write an article about our experience, and… here it is on Traveling Boy. Sheri and I talked about our time at Hacienda San Lorenzo all the way home. It reinforced our previous experiences of the warmth and good nature of the Mexican people from our many times in Mexico. We told our story to many of our friends with fond recollections and offers to organize a group trip. We won’t soon forget our experiences at Casa Madero… The Oldest Winery in the Americas.

The post The Oldest Winery in the Americas appeared first on Traveling Archive.

The T-Boy Society of Film & Music’s latest poll is devoted to something that we all have experienced: Travel Nightmares. Our first entry by the most esteemed Richard Carroll puts the theme in the proper context. It’s really all about ourselves and should serve as Travel Lessons Learned.

Richard Carroll — T-Boy writer:

Follow the Rules, Particularly When It’s In Your Own Book

I wrote a book “Traveling Mexico by RV” for Chronicle Books, San Francisco, and on a driving trip to Central America, seemly I cast aside everything I had written and simply ignored many of the rules and tips in the book creating a travel nightmare to remember.

With two surfboards on the luggage rack of a Volkswagen Camper, called the African Queen, we were on our way back to Southern California from Panama when arriving at a huge flow of water blocking the roadway near the Guatemala/Mexico border. I thought that I could easily drive through the water though my wife and son Carson urged me to pull over. We quickly found the Queen floating down a fast moving river sideways water rushing through the floorboards. Carson shouted, “Dad, should I pull down a surfboard?” I said, “That’s not funny Carson!”  We finally became lodged on a sandbar, and all the while the chuckling Mexicans thought it was the most humorous sight ever. I could hear them, “Look what the crazy gringos are doing!”

They did help with much effort on a hot humid day to push the Queen off the sandbar, all the while staring at me with great glee, while pushing the Queen a short distance to their small village along a dirt road stopping squarely in front of a house of prostitution. The ladies came out and offered us a mattress in one of the rooms with a fan. We declined. Each morning the smiling senoritas would sit on a wall snacking and offering us hot tortillas, Carson, 17, said, “Those ladies are really pretty and so nice.” I said, “Never mind Carson

For three days we sat in front of the house along with the senoritas who were busy half the night, the Queen refusing to start. Each morning the villagers on their way to the fields would stop by and work on the Volkswagen pushing it up and down the dirt road to no avail. One morning, an older man with a large mustache who we called the Maestro, very elegantly punched a large hole in the muffler with a screwdriver thinking if the water drained out the Volkswagen might start. He stood up, bowed, and sauntered away. Throughout those three days we were invited to funerals and weddings, received baskets of fresh fruit, were friends of the senoritas, and finally on the third morning with four hefty Mexicans pushing the Volkswagen it kicked over. The wounded Queen putted out of the village on three cylinders, the villagers cheering, Carson waving goodbye to the smiling senoritas.

About a half-hour later on a lonely stretch of road we ran out of gas. For some two hours cars zoomed past us in bunches looking the other way. It was dead quiet and under a blazing hot sun and low-flying large-winged birds, suddenly a huge tanker truck pulled up behind us. The driver minus a shirt, wearing a headband, cigarette dangling, and looking like Zorba the Greek understood even before I explained that our gas tank was empty. With a dented coffee can in one hand that he was using for an ash tray he climbed to the top of the tanker and scooped out some petrol created a funnel from a piece of paper and we had gas. He never spoke, refused money, and drove away. It was like a strange vision, a happening from the heavens.

We made it home though quickly got lost in the maze of Mexico City traffic until two motorcycle cops led us to the correct highway. Then driving hundreds of miles without rear view mirrors that were stolen in Guatemala via the quickest hands in the country was a dangerous challenge. Later Carson whispered to me, “Are you going to tell anyone about the six Honduran guerrillas we picked up carrying machine guns and pistols who kept asking you in strange Spanish, ‘Do you like your president?’ I remember we dropped them off just before Tegucigalpa and they faded into the bush with six bottles of our cold water.”

It was for sure a travel nightmare but only one of numerous others driving the Queen south of the border.

Fyllis Hockman — T-Boy writer:

The Most Difficult Trek We Had Ever Experienced.

The eight of us huddled together, warned repeatedly to stay close and keep quiet. A soft cough escaped from one of our party and the guide looked immediately askance. Coughing and sneezing were very much frowned upon. If you’re scraped by a stinging nettle, don’t even think about screaming — a usually fitting response. Sharing 98.4 percent of our DNA, the elusive mountain gorillas — whom we were seeking at the time — are very susceptible to human-borne illnesses and more gorillas die from such infectious diseases than from any other cause. We were carriers and they had to be protected from us. And this was before the pandemic!

Still, eight humans a day are allowed to visit these gentle giants, as they are known, for no longer than an hour, as we did during a recent visit to Uganda as part of an ElderTreks tour.

This is not exactly a drive-by photo op. With a vigorous (to say the least) trek of 1-7 hours, depending upon where the gorillas are that day, you have to REALLY want to see them. But even with visitation restricted to an hour, it is usually well worth the effort. But more on that later.

There are about 880 mountain gorillas in the world with almost half  located in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, a World Heritage Site clearly worthy of its name, in southwestern Uganda, an 18% increase over the last census due to increased conservation efforts, education and veterinary care. This is very good news.

The prelude to the hike is itself intimidating. Treks range from 1-7 hours according to the promotional material, with a maximum increase in elevation of 500 meters. Wear good hiking boots, don gloves for the nettles, a walking stick is mandatory, bring lots of water, don’t get closer than 25 feet — and remember these are wild animals.

Anticipation mixed closely with apprehension as every person on our tour, whether expressed aloud or not, felt “I hope I can make.” The tale I’m about to tell about my travel-writing husband Vic and myself is not the norm. The tale for the other eight members of our ElderTreks tour, from whom we were separated because of the limit of eight people to a gorilla trekking group, is the opposite extreme — also not the norm.

Boy, were we ever wrong. The trek was somewhat strenuous from the beginning, with steep climbs and slippery descents, traversing narrow ravines, but we were holding our own, feeling pretty good about ourselves. Until we entered the forest. And there was no semblance of a trail at all. The guides were trail-blazing with the help of machetes deep into the clearly “impenetrable” woods, the rocks, roots and brambles beneath our feet not even visible because of the thick underbrush. With walking stick in one hand and the porter’s in the other, I tried valiantly to move forward though at times the porter was literally dragging me up the precipitous slopes or keeping me from sliding down sheer declines, twigs and vines attacking from both sides of the non-trail, entangling my feet and arms to further impede progress in either direction. At times, I thought either my arm would be pulled off by the porter or my legs by the vines.

All the while, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for thinking to myself how little at that point I cared about the gorillas and how much I was worried about surviving the grueling trip back. I was seriously considering becoming a modern day Dian Fossey and staying with the gorillas, assuming we ever reached them, just to avoid the return trip.

I wish we could say the trip was worth it but by the time we finally dragged ourselves — or more appropriately — were dragged by the porters to the designated area where the gorillas had been, they had left. This is just not what you want to hear after what most of us on the trek agreed was the most difficult thing we had ever experienced.

Ed Boitano — T-Boy editor:

Investigate Tour Operator Before Booking

Our little ferry graced the salt marshes of Hilton Head Island. Surrounded by a world of sea grass in South Carolina’s Low Country, we were on our way to the island of Daufuskie in search of Gullah history and culture.   The ferry ride served as our introduction to our tour vendor — which I’ll refer to as XYZ.  Little did I know that this very ferry ride would be the highpoint of our tour.

First, a little about the Gullah

Research told me that slave traders brought Africans from Sierra Leone to the chain of Sea Islands for their expertise in planting, harvesting and processing rice. During the 1700s, American colonists in the Southeastern U.S. realized that rice would grow well in the moist, semitropical country bordering their coastline. But the American white plantation slave owners had no experience in the cultivation of rice, so they purchased slaves with a preference for Africans from the “Rice Coast” or “Windward Coast” — the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa. The enslaved people became known as the Gullah (Gul-luh), perhaps derived from Gola, a tribe found near the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Daufuskie itself: translated to “pointed feather,” a name attributed to island’s earliest inhabitants, the tribes of Muskogean stock.

I read that when the U.S. Civil War commenced, white owners hurriedly abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland, while some Gullah were actually unaware of the war and their eventual freedom from slavery. Due to this isolation, the Gullah were able to preserve more of their African cultural heritage than any other group of Black Americans. They spoke a unique Creole language and maintained a life similar to that of Sierra Leone. I was anxious to meet a Gullah person and hear their unique language in conversation, and, who knows, maybe even a bit of folklore.

As we exited the ferry we were met at the dock with a hostile sign: “No food Allowed,” and then were escorted by a XYZ employee to a row of golf carts by a general store. His scripted remarks included ‘”If you want any food you better get it here, this store is the only place on the island you can get it” (later we found an independent grocery in the island’s center) and “this is our BEST golf cart on the island… I know ‘cause I just rode it!”

We were happy to leave the man; and with map in-hand of historic Gullah sites, we excitedly navigated our golf cart down the dusty dirt road in search of these remarkable people. Sort of, that is, due to our cart running at half speed compared to the other golf carts. We returned it to the less-than-embarrassed man, who offered no explanation, and were given another, which broke down in ten minutes. This time, a more qualified man said we should have never have been assigned the first two carts and gave us another that actually worked.

So, we were now officially off on our expedition in search of the Gullah. The map turned out be fairly accurate leading us to the First Union African Baptist Church, listed as a historical landmark; followed by Maryfield School (circa 1930), the primary school for the Gullah children.  This is the school where author Pat Conroy taught in the late 1960s, later documenting his experience in the novel, The Water is Wide. Transportation only began in 1950, so the children must have had a long walk in the woods. The small Billie Burn Historical Museum was next on our agenda; with Ms. Burn considered the first true Daufuskie historian, having documented life on the island’s past in her book, An Island Named Daufuskie. The early afternoon closed after quick looks at the Mary Field Cemetery, the largest Gullah cemetery on the island, and empty ageing homes. All very interesting, but, no Gullah. Later, at the other independent store, I asked the manager, is there any place where can I actually meet one of these fascinating people. His thoughtful reply was true and educational; in fact, we learned more from him than we did with any XYZ employee. It went something like this: The Gullah have long been gone. You missed them by a couple generations. Occasionally an older person will return to the island to see their ancestral home. But… wait a sec… someone told me that right now there’s one Gullah descendent doing just that right now.

But where, I asked?

I was given complicated directions, before realizing that racing over to the woman’s private home would clearly be an invasion of her privacy. Our quest clearly needed to be tempered.

As we returned to the petite ferry it was obvious that we had been misled and even lied to by XYZ. Nevertheless, we were happy to see and learn all we did. But, were still annoyed that we had been taken advantage of, and wondered why such a company could even exist. It suddenly occurred to me that South Carolina is one of the least regulated states in the U.S., a state where the establishment of forming workers’ unions was once illegal. Curiously, the Sea Islands were the first place in the South where slaves were freed. It made no sense to my Yankee mindset.

Though it might feel otherwise, this short piece was not written as a slight or act of vengeance against any XYZ owner or employee — if fact, I never mentioned a single name — but the experience did serve as a life lesson; never book a tour with a vendor until you’ve thoroughly, independently, researched them and the specific tour. If not, there is a chance you might be disappointed. I noticed online that a tourist had commented that the island was one big tourist trap. Well, I thought, it depends on a person’s interests and perspective, but found most tourists were there for rest, relaxation and a lot of drinking. In conversation with others on the ferry ride back, it became clear not one of them had even a hint about the existence, let alone the culture, of these historic people, the people simply known as the Gullah.

Susan Breslow — T-Boy writer:

Africa: Don’t Tip the Canoe

It frightened me to go to Africa; so faraway, so different, so wild. Yet I was even more curious than I was anxious — to a point.

Tony, my outdoors-loving companion, and I were brought by motorboat to Water Wilderness, a flotilla of ramshackle houseboats on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe. We were deposited at the main lodge, which was basically a large raft with a roof. There a guide met us. He was a tall man wearing khaki shorts that showed off bronzed legs covered with blonde hairs. A leather bandolier filled with large bullets crisscrossed his torso. He told us about the area’s wildlife and talked about the conundrum he would face if an endangered rhino charged and he had to decide in a split second whether to shoot him to save himself.

Tony, tired of only seeing animals from the vantage of a Land Rover, expressed a desire to hike. The guide motioned to the canoes tethered to the raft. “Take one, and pick a houseboat,” he said. “Try not to tip over,” he added. “There are hippos in the water and crocodiles by the shore. In the morning I’ll take you on a hike.”

I hardly slept, my dreams full of toothy crocodiles straddling hippos to slither onto our houseboat. The next morning the guide called for us in a rowboat, and this time he had a long gun slung over his shoulder in addition to the bandoliers. Terror consumed me. What if the boat tipped over and we were breakfast for hippos? What if I was breakfast for a tse-tse fly? What if after we docked on the far shore an animal charged? What if I couldn’t keep up with the hikers? What if there were deadly snakes in the tall grass? I made it into the rowboat — and burst into tears.

“Do you want to go back to the houseboat?” the guide asked kindly. I nodded. He docked the boat on the far shore, and Tony jumped out. He handled him the rifle, then turned the boat back toward my haven. Tears drying, I was embarrassed. “Don’t be,” said my bronzed hero. “If they put me in the middle of Grand Central Station, I’d have the same reaction.”

A potential nightmare averted, I spent the rest of the day on the deck of my houseboat, watching Cape buffalo meandering on the hills beyond. Even they knew not to go in the water.

Stephen Brewer — T-Boy editor:

All’s Well That Ends Well

A flame shot across my hotel room when I switched on the air conditioner. Then the draperies caught on fire. I smothered the blaze and called the front desk. I’m not sure what the man who answered the phone thought I was telling him, but he arrived with an ice bucket. He sniffed the acrid smoke, pointed to the blackened remains of the air conditioner, and declared the room a catástrofe. That much I understood.

The trip was sure getting off to a rocky start. The plan was to pick up a car in Barcelona and drive across the Pyrenees to a rental house in Languedoc, in southwestern France. Looking back after all these years I remember snowcapped mountains, sun-drenched vineyards, villages of golden stone, and cassoulet… but I jump ahead of myself.

The next morning, in the windowless garret that the clerk said was his very last room, I was awakened by a disturbing revelation. I had left the prepaid voucher for my rental car in the bedside table of the other room. The same fellow was on duty behind the desk, and he let out a dramatic sigh of distress upon seeing me. I asked him to let me into my old room. “Ocupada,” he grumbled. Occupied? How had he explained the charred walls to the new guests? As it turned out, they probably hadn’t noticed. In answer to my knock a naked man flung open the door. He had a wine bottle in one hand and said “cheers, mate” in an Australian accent. A woman, barely covered by a sheet, gave me a friendly wave from the bed. I explained my mission and grabbed the precious voucher. I thanked them and the man asked me the time. “Just after nine,” I said, and he asked if I meant evening or morning.

With a spring in my step I walked down the Ramblas toward the car agency. Even this early in the day the cafes were full of chattering patrons. Parakeets chirped away from cages that hung from tree branches. I turned into the small street where the agency was located. The windows were dark, and the place was locked up tight. It would remain so for the next three days, according to a sign in the window, for the feast of some saint with whom I was unfamiliar, though he certainly seemed to have the miraculous power to ruin my vacation. In those pre-computer days, you couldn’t just cancel a reservation and make another one online. I was stranded until I could retrieve the car. On the bright side, nothing was stopping me from moving to the nicer-looking hotel across the street. I didn’t realize the two establishments were under the same management until I came back from dinner that evening. The same clerk was behind the desk. He glared at me. I gave him my steeliest stare. “Try not to burn this place down, too” he growled in broken English, then added under his breath “tonto Americano” (American fool).

I got out of Barcelona without further incident, but I wish I could report that the rest of the trip was smooth sailing. I had just climbed out of the car to stretch my legs at the top of the Col du Portalet, one of the highest and most spectacular of the passes across the Pyrenees, when I heard the low rumbling for the first time. Thunder, I thought, but the sky was cloudless and a startling blue. Ah, farm machinery, no doubt, but nothing grew up here above the tree line. Or wait, maybe it was one of those quaint horns I’d read about, that shepherds use to communicate with one another across the heights? Or perhaps the grunts of a chamois? Then I realized that the noise was coming from my car.

The garagiste in Pau buried his head under the hood, exclaimed several “Mon Dieus,” and emerged to inform me the car was a catastrophe (that word again). The solution was simple: replace the engine. I declined.

By the time I had settled into my village the car would start only intermittently. My very nice neighbor Dieter, a summertime resident from Heidelberg, showed me how to pop start the car. I soon became quite adept at the technique, shifting in and out of second gear as I glided down an incline through the vineyards until the engine turned over. In the coming weeks I also learned the term for flat tire, pneu coupe, and I had two occasions to use the phrase. Then there was the water that kept pooling on the kitchen floor. I could not locate a leak, nor could I find Jean-Claude, the gardien who was supposed to look after the property. He was in Lyons on business, or so the snippy woman who answered his phone told me. Then he was in Nimes, visiting a sick aunt, then in Toulouse, at a fair. The peripatetic Jean-Claude never did make an appearance in my kitchen. I purchased a mop with a fancy wring mechanism. Mopping and pop-starting became parts of my daily routine. I mapped out excursions with consideration for how much mopping I would have to do when I returned. I parked only on downgrades.

On my way back to Barcelona I stopped for a few nights in Cadaques, a stunningly white seaside village at the top of the Costa Brava. My terrace overlooked a blue swath of the Mediterranean, framed by heavenly scented pines. The Languedoc reds I’d brought with me were delicious. My mopping days were behind me. Soon I could turn the problematic car over to the agency. According to my calculations, I could get all the way back to Barcelona on just one pop start. As Shakespeare said “all’s well that ends well,” and the more wine I drank, the more reassuring I found it to think that in travel as in life, the good things are what remain with us.

Ringo Boitano — T-Boy writer:

A Nightmare Train Experience With A Happy Ending

My photographer and I had just finished a stunning seven-day tour of Switzerland’s Lucerne and the Lake Geneva region.

Our final night was at a Zürich hotel, walking distance to the train station, which would depart to the Zürich airport, only one stop away. My photographer was booked on an early before dawn flight, leaving me with an extra hour of sleep and two over-packed suitcases and a backpack. No problem for me, I smirked. But the next early morning after she had departed, I found it still too early in the morning and my baggage heavy and awkward to carry. Nevertheless, it was the cross I had to carry, and slowly and methodically made it to the trainstation, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. Fortunately, on my turtle-like walk there was not a soul in sight, sparing me the embarrassment of the macho Yank, barely able to stand up.

At the train station there were many Swiss kids and a few older, still partying from the night before. In front of me were a line of railroad trains. Of course, the world knows that Switzerland has a dense network of railways with more than 2600 stations and stops, which are as efficient as an Olympic game clock

As I surveyed the trains, I was unable to find one with the magical words, Zürich Airport. The railway representatives were a little too far away for me to bother to ask, so I stupidly thought, well, Zürich Airport is one stop away and any train going in that direction will make a stop. I climbed aboard the nearest train and took a comfortable seat. As the train ride commenced, I noticed we were covering a lot of kilometers, more than I had thought for a quick ride to the airport. A railway ticket collector appeared and carefully punched everyone’s ticket. When it came to mine, he took pause. In perfect English he asked, “Where do you think you are going?” “Zürich Airport,” I replied. The gentleman shook his head, “There is no stop at the airport. This is a direct ride to Lugano.”  Before I could reply, he took my ticket and left me with the words, wait here.  My five-minute wait felt like I was trapped in a Hitchcock film before the man returned  and informed me that the train will make an emergency stop at a platform where another train will be waiting to transport me to the airport. What! How can this be on the world’s most efficient railway system, a railway system that was so efficient as an Olympic game clock. Wouldn’t this interfere with their carefully orchestrate time table? But it was true. The train actually stopped, and I struggled over to the desolate, opposite platform with my load, where the train to Zürich Airport and its conductor was actually waiting for me. The conductor words were polite, but commanding. “Wait here! Do Not Go Anywhere! We will tell you when to get off to the airport.” And that’s what exactly happened; 15 minutes later I was standing in the check-in line at the Zürich Airport. Is there a morale or even travel tip from this? No, not really; just don’t be a clueless American and always take the time to ask questions. You’ll find many people are happy to help, particularly in Switzerland.

Richard Carroll — T-Boy writer:

Press Trip Travel Nightmares

On a media trip to Indonesia there was writer with a drinking problem who by evening time was slurring his words and unable to communicate. It was a Travel Nightmare when sitting at the dining table and it was his turn to speak to the hosts. A media cruise to South America a writer hit on a gorgeous lady sitting at a bar. He didn’t realize that she was on her honeymoon and quickly her husband appeared and there were blows. At the next port of call he was kicked off the cruise and left on the dock with his luggage. Later he sent the public relations lady roses and she returned them. Both of these were extremely embarrassing and awkward. I could write a long short story about Travel Nightmares, as could most active travel writers.

A press trip to Switzerland an editor from Sunset Magazine was always late. The Swiss PR leader instructed us that we would meet at a certain place in the heart of the village at 4 p.m. and please don’t be late. The van can only be in this area for a few minutes and it’s a huge ticket if we overstay. We were all back on the van minutes before 4 p.m. except for the Sunset Magazine editor. We looked down the sidewalk and there he was sauntering along looking in windows, as a policeman appeared at the window of the van. The PR guy lost his temper and shouted, “I’m not a damn baby sitter for travel writers and I’m tired waiting for an airhead!” He slammed the door of the van and we left him in the village. Our next stop was miles further in another Swiss mountain village where we would spend the night. Hours later about halfway through a marvelous dinner here comes Sunset Magazine straggling in through the door. The PR leader stood up and said, “Here’s the key to your room,” then sat down at the festive table. It was another awkward Travel Nightmare. He did go straight to his room and was never late again. Throughout the remainder of the trip the PR leader ignored him.

There was a media trip when two Los Angeles women were invited and the New York PR lady didn’t realize they despised each other, it was a week-long Travel Nightmare. In Puerto Vallarta on a press trip a female was sent home because she was complaining morning, noon and night. The PR lady said to her in front of the group, “We spent a great deal of money on this trip and you’re ruining it. We have booked a flight for you at 6 p.m. and possibly we can work together in the future?”

On a press trip to New York City with some excellent writers, one writer was allowed to bring along his new girlfriend. The second day he arrived at breakfast with a black eye, his glasses shattered and a huge bump on his forehead. It looked as if she had whacked him with both hands. She arrived at breakfast without a mark sitting at the table far from him. They sent her back to Los Angeles that afternoon and helped the writer to find a new set of glasses.

A trip to Asia a writer disappeared on the first night and didn’t reappear till it was time to depart. The PR firm banned him forever and spread the word to other PR firms. This writer has faded from the world of travel.

On a cruise to Hong Kong a writer from NYC attempted to commit suicide. Somehow, he stowed away on the ship and we spent the entire cruise searching for him. Finally, the staff entered his cabin for the 10th time. He was on his bed staring at the ceiling and not speaking. He told us that he was depressed and only kidding about suicide. That seemed to be the end of this writing career, and the last time I checked he’s still alive and healthy living in Chicago.

A cycling trip to Austria the PR firm was adamant that we need to be in good shape, not top physical shape but able to cycle a six mile segment to a waiting bus. It was a hot day and after 20 minutes or so a lady from Philadelphia was lagging far behind. I stopped and talked to her. She was not in good shape, sweating profusely, and refusing to go any further. The PR cycle leader walked her back to the starting village and then had to find transportation at great expense for a one hour trip over a mountain to connect with the media group. Everyone was worried about her and it sent the focused travel edge flying. She said, “I didn’t think it would be this hard.” She remained on the bus for the remainder of the cycling sessions. The European PR firm was not happy, and one of the leaders said to me privately, “Do you Americans know how to read?”

Hemingway wrote, “If you want to stay married to your wife or sweetheart never travel with her.” We have witnessed a number of couples who have had travel stress breakdowns with shouting matches, leaving overloaded luggage in hotels and parking lots and wishing they had never left home.

Weave Cleveland — Travel Guys cinematographer

Circumstances Beyond Your Control

The Greek mob, set up by the Russians, roofied, robbed, a smashed sliding glass door at a Best Western gashing my leg right open, a maid in terror watching me bleed sitting at the edge of a bathtub with the water running as I do my own surgery, me tearing my own clothes into strips to use as tourniquet’s, a restaurant owner punching me because I didn’t choose his restaurant, British Airways leaving my luggage in the rain leaving me without anything for two and four days respectively, more than one piece of luggage, think colours running into other clothes, blues into whites, etc. … and explaining why your suitcase now weighs 80 lbs. instead of 40, Heathrow Board of Health refusing me first aid and telling me to go to a hospital in London when all I wanted was to please get back home — and that’s just Europe.

Tom Weber — T-Boy writer:

Behind Enemy Lines

In a previous life, the one that provided me with a bi-monthly paycheck, I traveled a lot. The job afforded me countless suitcases full of opportunities while in the service of my government. That’s how I managed to get the lion’s share of entry-exit stamps and visas in my well-worn passports.

Colleagues were envious, but not jealous, that I was able to “change the air” and leave the office environment on a pretty regular basis for long stretches of time.

Whenever I’d pack up and head for foreign shores, I’d always tell my officemates, tongue-in-cheek, that I was going “behind enemy lines.” Truth be told, my pronouncement really wasn’t that far off.

The different languages, cultures, customs, traditions, politics, cuisine, scenery, just everyday life in general, in most of the places that I’ve visited, were odd and foreign to me at first, but after numerous return visits to some, I became more relaxed, more comfortable, and more at ease with my temporary abodes abroad.

As the old saying goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

I learned early on that whenever I traveled outside my comfort zone, the best way to approach it was by doing my utmost to adapt to the new culture for as long as I was in “their” fair city, village or hamlet. Sample and soak in as much of your hosts’ way of life as you can. And whatever you do, do not go around comparing your way of life back home with theirs. Just leave your personal baggage behind. Don’t let it clutter or fog up the new-found moment or experience. In other words, don’t rain on your own parade.

Being “behind enemy lines” can be, and should be, a lot of fun. Don’t blame misplaced luggage, flight delays, bad weather, etc. on the place you’re visiting. These are simply the bumps and bruises of the foreign travel experience.

In the end, it all works out and makes for interesting stories to share with your office mates when you return home. Remember, they’re envious that you got to go. So, embellish a bit.

I’m probably preaching to the choir with most of you fellow, well-seasoned “road warriors,” but it’s always good to remind ourselves that when we step off the plane, train or boat, that “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

From the Panama Canal to the Great Wall of China, from the bush of South Africa to a mud hut in the Haute Guinea, I’ve done my fair share of being placed, and placing myself, “behind enemy lines” and always made it back safe and sound. And, most importantly, I returned home more enlightened and fulfilled than I was before I left.

James Boitano — T-Boy writer

A Travel Nightmare All In Your Head

When it involves your family, a Travel Nightmare can be all in your head.

Some years ago, my parents and siblings and I all took a Carnival Cruise to the Western Caribbean out of Tampa. It was a lovely week-long visit of the Cayman Islands, the Yucatan and Belize.

The cruise ended Sunday morning with a flight home at noon and the eventual return to work on Monday. Typically, Sunday morning was sad to see the trip over, but then it turned stressful. Very stressful. Due to unexpected fog, the ship couldn’t dock for hours until after its scheduled arrival. Our noon flight was now much too early. We spent so many anxious hours, first stressing about when we could get off the ship and how we’d catch our flight, and then rushing to the airport. When they finally let us off the ship, we had only about an hour till our flight. We scrambled for all our might to make it to the airport, only to arrive 15 minutes too late to catch our flight home to Seattle. I can still remember how stressed out we were over this ‘nightmare’. My mother even abandoned a suitcase when we couldn’t find it at the base of the ship when we disembarked.

But why in the world did we work ourselves up into such a frenzy? For in the end, we got a flight home the next morning and had a lovely last day together as a family around the pool of a cheap motel somewhere in town. It turned out to be a blessing to have an extra day together as a family to extend our vacation. The nightmare was all in our heads.

Brom Wikstrom — T-Boy writer and mouth painter:

Impossible to Anticipate Conditions 

Any travel nightmare I’ve had revolves around the impossible to anticipate conditions that also make for some of the most satisfying aspects of travel. In Lugano, Switzerland, we spent an afternoon, seated in a bike repair shop, while ingenious workers improvised a fix to my wheelchair, shortening spokes they had to accommodate my broken wheels. Their pride at correcting my dilemma was a joy to behold and we were sent on our way with smiles.

On another occasion, in Arches National Park, we had been struggling up a steep trail that had been declared wheelchair accessible but wasn’t very. Just at the point where we had to decide whether to just stop and enjoy what we’d done or return to a simpler trail below, a burly guy named Bruce came along to offer an assist. In no time, we had not only ascended to the top of the trail, but he stuck with us for the entire loop trail. By the end of the day, we’d acquired a good friend.

Tammy Skinner — T-Boy writer

A Hellenic Promise

There are many nuances to being a woman — most of them fabulous but some of them not so much. One of them being the seemingly invisible magnetic sign when traveling that seems to scream VULNERABLE VICTIM. Luckily, I have radar which senses movement of possible predators and over the years of traveling have developed an intricate system to ward them off. I was 21 traveling to Brindisi, Italy by train coming from Paris. My traveling companion (also female) and I were excited to travel to Greece for the first time and our plan was to get to Brindisi and stay up all night then take the early morning ferry to Patras. We befriended a kind young man on the train who was American and, on his way, to visit relatives. Out of concern and respect, he decided he would stay with us once we got to Brindisi in order to protect us from any of the street kids. All was well until we made some “new friends” who followed us around and offered to keep us company as well. Our American friend played dumb pretending he didn’t speak their language and, in the meantime, overheard their plot to kidnap my companion and I by taking us in a boat and pretending to take us 3 but then leaving our “American” friend behind.

Since I knew of this plan ahead of time and had some theater experience under my belt, I decided to act quick. It was around 5am when they took us to the dock (not far from where we would have been actually leaving for Patras only 2 hours later) …my companion and I locked eyes as we approached the boat and off in the distance I saw a group of people who were gathering to already start their wait for the arrival of the ferry. I grabbed her by the hand careful to not show fear to our kidnappers nor draw attention to them in any way that would make them angry and I turned to her and shouted “Look!! It’s Gary and Dennis!! They met us here like they said they would. Hi guys!!!!!” Grabbing her, we ran as fast as we could towards that group all the while shouting our greetings. We were lucky. We got away. That ferry ride to Greece was hotter than hot. We were sweaty, the air was humid and life had never felt sweeter. My memories of Greece are filled with wonder as I recall the beautiful beaches of Santorini, the ruins in Athens, the mouth-watering gyros in Patras and the late nights we spent dancing in Corfu. Life is sweet and is to be savored. Yet the Greek philosopher, Socrates, summed it all when he said “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.” The lesson of my travel nightmare was no doubt doubled as well; to be always aware of your surroundings (remaining vigilant and hyper attuned) and appreciating the beauty in the environment and people you encounter along the way.

Bill Cartmel Maroldo — Television personality and broadcaster:

Be Prepared for the Worst

For the most part, travel is a double-edge sword. I love being in a new place and exploring the highlights – whether it be a village, city, or country. But for me, every vacation has its travel nightmare and it usually comes at both ends of the flight. I guess it would be cliché to say “I hate flying,” and so instead I will say I despise it.

From the park and ride (think of coming back and clearing off your car after a snowstorm); to arriving at the airport (they tell you to come early, but then you sit for a couple of hours next to someone talking loudly on their cell phone); to checking in (trying to relearn the “time saving” kiosks with instructions that change with each trip, and worrying your suitcase is 51 lbs.); to finding your gate (which just changed and is now at the other end of the airport); to boarding (feeling like I’m in line for a Rolling Stones concert); to finding your seat (which someone else is already sitting in, and the overhead storage is already full); to take off (the pilot telling us we’re backed up behind a few dozen other planes, but it won’t be long); to landing (for the moment it almost feels like it’s over, but it’s not); to disembarking (uh oh, my connection is taking off in a few minutes and they still haven’t opened the door); to retrieving the luggage (ok, I realize someone has to have the suitcase which gets loaded last onto the belt). Oh boy! Now I can look forward to finding the car rental and explaining why I don’t need insurance, and then figuring out how to get on the right highway since my GPS won’t work in the parking garage. But at last the vacation has begun, the hyperventilating has subsided, and I remember why it’s all worth it.

Raoul Pascual — Webmaster, illustrator and T-Boy writer:

The Crooks of Philippine Airlines

I will never recommend Philippine Airlines (PAL).

It is the flagship airlines of the Philippines. There are 3 other local competitors that fly people within the country, but it is the only international airline that flies straight from Manila to the rest of the world. Other international flights have a stop-over. Essentially, PAL is a subtle monopoly. This is my experience with the branch in Cagayan (Southern Philippines).

The air crew is great, but the ground crew is like a car salesman. They know they have you under their command, so they gauge your desperation and dangle ridiculous prices that seem to be plucked from thin air. It takes them forever to analyze the history of your itinerary … I mean how difficult is it to read an online document? On the official website, you can’t inquire via telephone … no contact information for an actual human being and their local/branch Philippine travel agents cannot help you. They are merely travel agents who book you and get their commission, but they cannot adjust your itinerary. The travel agent said they cannot even call the airline directly. How ridiculously antiquated is that? Any deviation from your original schedule needs to be addressed face-to-face (not even by phone) with an agent from the official ticketing office (usually on the local airport itself} which can be hours away from you.

I went to the Iligan, Southern Philippines, to visit my Dad. While I was there, he contracted pneumonia and I had to delay my return flight back to the Manila to care for him. I decided Sunday evening to change my Monday flight to Thursday. I was not prepared for the nightmare that was about to happen.

Monday

Because my Monday flight was set at 6:30 AM, I was forced to drive 1.5 hours to the PAL local ticketing/satellite office in the airport office at 4:00am. When I got there, a man named Frank was late to arrive at his office. He was supposed to open at 4:30 but he got there a little past 5 .a.m. I was the only one waiting but when he opened a rich lady stepped in front of me and she got catered to first. The two chatted and giggled for over half an hour. It appears she and Frank were old friends. When it was finally my turn, Frank took forever to realize that my US travel agent had already cancelled my flight the night before. Then he gave me a list of all official hospital documents I needed to gather in order to justify my change of departure to qualify for free re-booking. He said he could not decide on our exception, so I needed to drive even further the next day (with the documents) to the main city (another hour away) to the PAL office downtown. Before I left, I told Frank to book me in the next flight that was leaving on Thursday.

Tuesday

I spent a half a day chasing after the hospital documents because I had to line up and pay fees to obtain it.

Wednesday

I drove all the way to the downtown main PAL ticketing office. When I stepped in at 9 a.m., Mr. Granada, a massively overweight agent, told us the exception only applied if I were hospitalized, i.e., all those hospital documents were worthless. I needed to pay the full price; $300 more, “but if you want to complain, only my manager could decide on your case.” He told me his manager would be in at 3 p.m.

We returned at 3pm but by that time, a crowd had already gathered so I waited in line for an hour. Mr. Granada then rambled on about a penalty for my “no show” and I explained that my travel agent had already cancelled it. He pretended not to see that in my records. His face frowned realizing I had outwitted him from paying a penalty fee. Then he came up with a new scam. He said I should have made a reservation. I told him I told bald headed Frank to do that for me. He said there was no record of the reservation. He claimed the Thursday flight was fully booked but he would be able to squeeze me in for $1,200 more.

Mr. Granada was testing to see how desperate I was to get out of the country. I called his bluff and told him I could wait. When he realized I was not in a hurry he went to the back room and conferred some more “with his manager” (if there really was a manager). By that time, he returned, I had already checked for alternate airlines. The cheapest fare was about $500 at EVA Air. Granada came back and said the cheapest one he could get me for the flight leaving on Thursday was just a few dollars off the competitor. It was either pay a little more with another airline (and deal with the hassle of transferring flights) or buy the ticket he was offering. I had to bite the bullet and take up his offer.

Thursday (Escape Day)

It was only when the plane left the ground that I could relax. I looked around the plane and there were several empty seats … I realized Mr. Granada had lied about the plane being fully booked. It appears the scoundrel still won in the end.

Epilogue

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has a local moniker: PAL stands for Palaging Always Late. “Palaging” means “Always” so in English it means “Always, Always Late.”

I have written them to ask for an explanation and they have not responded.

Their booking system is outdated. They slide prices according to your desperation. You’d be a fool to change your itinerary once you are trapped in the country.

Steve Rosenfield — Photographer and T-Boy writer:

Story of Lost Luggage

One Friday in December, my wife Elaine and I boarded a flight from Los Angeles non-stop to London Heathrow for the purpose of attending our daughter Amanda’s engagement party in London. The engagement party was to take place in Loughton, Essex, just north of London, beginning on Sunday at 3:30 PM. The engagement party was being hosted by our future in-laws, Gary and Suki, and was specifically scheduled during the Christmas holiday so that my wife and I could attend. There were over 200 guests expected to attend the engagement party.

Our American Airlines flight was scheduled to arrive in London Heathrow at 1:30 PM on Saturday where our in-laws had arranged for a car service to pick us up and bring us to Loughton.

As the flight approached Heathrow, the plane could not land due to poor weather conditions. After circling over Manchester, England for an hour, we were advised by the flight crew that Heathrow was closed, and the flight was being diverted to Brussels. We landed in Brussels at about 4:30 PM local time and sat on the plane for about 2 hours when we were told that busses would soon be arriving to transport all passengers to the terminal from where we would be bused to the Holiday Inn for the night. The flight crew also advised passengers that luggage could not be off-loaded because there were no ground crew personnel available to do the work. We were eventually bused to the hotel where we spent the night and were told to return to the terminal Sunday morning to hopefully re-board the plane around 11:00 AM and make the short flight back to London Heathrow.

My wife and I arrived back at the American Airlines terminal in Brussels at about 9:00 AM Sunday morning and stood in line with many other diverted passengers to find out about the continuing flight to Heathrow. Unfortunately, Heathrow was still closed, and the airline was handing out hotel room vouchers for Sunday night. We were told that the luggage was still on the plane which was still on the tarmac in Brussels.

The local time was now about 10:00 AM in Brussels – 9:00 AM in London. My wife and I had to make a decision – abandon any hope of attending our daughter’s engagement party (which was not a good option) or finding another way to get to London by 3:30 PM that afternoon.

When inquiring about our luggage (three suitcases) if we were to get to London by other means, we were told by the AA agent in Brussels that the luggage would end up at its final destination (Heathrow) and that we could then have the luggage delivered to our local address in the London area.

After listening to other travelers, who were in a similar predicament, trying to get onto other flights to Birmingham or Manchester, England, or trying to get tickets for the EuroStar train from Brussels to London (which they were told was sold out), we opted to look into renting a car and driving to Paris, and from there boarding the train to London. I spoke with an agent at the Hertz car rental desk in the airport who told me that I did not need to drive to Paris, but instead could drive to Calais, a couple of hour drive, and catch the EuroStar from there to London. In the interim, my wife rented a mobile phone in the airport so that we could stay in communication with our daughter and future in-laws as we made our way back to London.

The drive to Calais took about 2 hours in the snow getting us to the train station by about 1:30 PM local time. We found the train station in Calais and went to the ticket window with the intent of purchasing two tickets for the EuroStar from Calais to London but were told that the next passenger train was not scheduled to leave until 6:00 PM that evening. Obviously, if we had waited until 6:00 PM for the train, the engagement party would have ended by the time we arrived in London. The ticket agent suggested that we take the next car-train which was scheduled to leave about 3:00 PM local time, arriving in Dover, England about 35 minutes later. With the UK being one hour behind France, we would arrive in Dover about 2:45 PM local time which would hopefully give us enough time to get to our daughter’s engagement party before it ended at 6:30 PM.

The train was late, and we finally arrived in Dover at about after 3:30 PM making our way to Loughton, Essex, arriving at the engagement party about 5:30 PM, and were fortunate to at least having been able to spend about an hour meeting our future son-in-law, his parents and family, and all of the other guests.

The next day, I returned the rental car to a local Hertz office and began calling American Airlines to check up on our luggage which we assumed was still in Brussels since we were told that Heathrow was still closed. Getting through to American Airlines on Monday was impossible and Tuesday was not better. We called our daughter back in Los Angeles who contacted American Airlines in Dallas and put us on a conference call with the delayed baggage department personnel. We filed our delayed/missing baggage report and were told that we would receive a call (to our local London number) once the bags were found. We were also told that the airlines would reimburse my wife and me up to $300 US for both to buy replacement toiletries and clothing.

My wife and I did go shopping for basic toiletries and clothing but ended up borrowing clothes and cold weather gear from our soon to be in-laws. We were hoping that our bags would arrive and the need to purchase much of what we were missing would not be necessary.

We continued to check the AA website for updates and tried calling a few times, but nothing changed. Then, on Thursday, December 23rd, we talked to an AA agent who told us that one of our bags (the smallest one) was found and that we could arrange for delivery as soon as we filled out the customs forms and sent them in. The forms were emailed to us, filled out and returned that evening. We received confirmation that the custom forms were received and that the bag was scheduled for delivery hopefully within two days due to the backup. The bag never arrived, nor did we hear any news from American Airlines for the remainder of our stay in London.

Our scheduled departure from London to Los Angeles was on Sunday, December 26th at 11:10 AM. My wife and I arrived at Heathrow at about 8:00 AM with the intent of going to AA baggage and trying to find any of our luggage. We were escorted to the pen where all of the missing/ delayed bags were being stored and, with the assistance of the AA personnel there, searched all of the bags without finding our luggage. When we asked about the one bag that American had told us was found and was to be delivered to our London location, no one could tell us what happened to that bag despite someone from the baggage department having physically seen and touched that bag several days earlier.

Three weeks after arriving back home in Los Angeles, our luggage was finally delivered although my wife’s new Ugg boots were missing and presumably stolen from her bag.

Roger Fallihee — T-Boy writer:

Rocket Salad in London

After a wonderful and exhausting day of London sightseeing, that culminated with a stunning viewing of Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, at the Tate Modern, Dot and I ducked into an inviting Italian Bistro for a pre-theatre dinner. Little did we know that our decision to share a Rocket Salad would wipe out our itinerary for the next forty-eight hours.

At around 1:00 am I woke up with the unmistakable feeling of impending gastronomic doom, the kind that lets you know that you had better be in a bathroom within ten seconds or else. I will exclude all the unnecessary details here except to say that the attack was both frightening and ferocious.

I climbed back into bed and my loving and sympathetic wife and I retraced our meals of the day, hoping that our sleuthing would produce an obvious culinary culprit. The Rocket Salad was the only food that we shared. Dot suddenly leaped out of bed and bolted toward the bathroom door. Mystery solved.

For the next several hours our hotel room took on the look and feel of a traditional English farce, with us crossing paths in and out of the bathroom, desperately hoping that one of us would be finished before the other needed the room. I started to worry that our inability to sip even a tiny amount of water could force us into an ER and IVs, courtesy, of course, of the National Health Service.

Around 9:00 am I decided to make my way down to the dining room before they ended the breakfast food service to get some toast or rolls or fruit or anything that might be able to be successfully consumed. I made it half-way to the elevator when nature forced me to head back to our room… quickly.

I reached out to the front desk at the Park City Grand Plaza Hotel in Kensington and as I explained our predicament to Ashley she said, “Can I pop up to your room?” A few minutes later Ashley arrived with a notepad. “Let’s make a list and I’ll run to the market.”  We asked for ginger ale, Premium Saltines, oranges and anything else that she thought might be appealing. Ashley came back an hour later with two bags of snacks, beverages, candles and matches (thoughtful and welcome) and a few magazines.

Throughout that day and the next, Ashley and her coworkers called regularly to check on us. They made additional trips to the market and offered to take either of us to the ER if needed. By the following morning we were feeling mostly human again, but not completely out of the woods, so we decided to hunker down for another day.

The next morning, we woke up and it was as if nothing had ever happened. We felt great. We took the tube over to the Churchill War Rooms for a fascinating tour of the tiny rooms that PM Churchill, General Eisenhower and others used to plot the demise of Adolph Hitler.

As we wandered the streets near the Parliament we realized that we were actually hungry. I asked Dot what she was in the mood for. She dryly replied, “Mmmm, how about a nice Rocket Salad for two?”

T.E.  Mattox — T-Boy writer:

I’m not going anywhere near those places!

Although, I did buy a Swiss watch in Zürich.

The post Travel Nightmares: Travel Lessons Learned appeared first on Traveling Archive.

This wasn’t a conscious thought. As the travel restrictions weighed more heavily upon me I started to broaden my cooking, unconsciously seeking out new recipes from favorite countries that reminded me of my visits. Then one day I realized I’d taken a grand tour of Europe without leaving my dinner table. Over the course of two weeks I cooked ten different international meals. With the resulting leftovers and lunches I had 14 days of reminiscences of past visits while enjoying the taste of each country.

And it wasn’t just Europe I visited. I went to Cuba (I wish!) New England (a favorite summer haunt) and to North Africa for an adventurous dish. But it really all started rather simply in Mexico.

I’m a big fan of tacos, but not one of “messy eating around the dinner table” tacos. So now I make taco bowls to be eaten with a fork and spoon. Yes I’ll still eat tacos as street food, say, in Mexico City, with sauce dripping down my chin and arms, but doesn’t this look more inviting?

The next evening I was transported to Spain over a dish of Chicken Chilindron. This dish could be from any Mediterranean country except for the addition of smoked paprika, a.k.a. smoked pimenton, a very distinctive Spanish spice added for its red smoky heat. The aroma and taste had me right back in Extremadura, Spain, where smoked pimenton has its own DOC.

For a Friday in Lent I made cod cakes. The Iberian Peninsula is historically connected to cod, with Basque fishermen crossing the Atlantic, way before Columbus “discovered” the New World, to catch and dry fish for transport back home. All the salt cod you see today is descended from their preserving tradition. The Portuguese fished New England’s cod banks as well. This recipe is from an older Portuguese woman I once knew. It is healthier and more complex than the deep fried Spanish cod croquettes I love.

The next three dishes could easily be lumped into an Italian trifecta. Not that I was on a roll here. And certainly pizza the way I make it has nothing to do with Italy. But it’s still good and does have Italian-American roots. No, these reflect a desire for a more extended stay in the boot of Europe.

And while the scallops in white wine and garlic could be found along any Mediterranean coast, serving them on pasta got the dish included here.

But the true dish of Italy I made was a huge batch of slow-cooked Bolognese sauce, fragrantly simmering all day in my kitchen. It made a great base for some homemade ravioli I enjoyed for many days before freezing a quart for another trip, er, I mean meal. And speaking of slow cooking, I also made a vat of Pasta e Fagioli, unconventionally using some Rancho Gordo pinto beans I got as a Christmas gift. (If nothing else, we’ve all learned to improvise ingredients during this pandemic shut down.) I enjoyed the soup’s rich deliciousness many times.

Then, while I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d skip across the Mediterranean to taste a bit of Ethiopia. It wasn’t my plan, but I was inspired by a description of berbera spice mix on Milk Street Radio one Sunday. Apparently Ethiopians put berbera spice in everything, everyday, and each house has its own distinctive blend. I researched the basic recipe and made my own, adding and subtracting to my tastes. By the second batch I knew to use less hot ingredients, so everyone in the household can enjoy this taste of North Africa. The result is Doro Wat, an Ethiopian chicken dish with a red onion to chicken ratio of 1:1, a head of garlic, and a half cup of berbera spice blend. Wow! Just Wow! I doubled the next batch of berbera I made so I can use it every day, too.

Europe bound once more, I had a layover in Greece, because I always wanted to. And because I had all the ingredients for this delicious sounding dish: Greek Braised Chicken, a.k.a. Kota Kapama. It’s not what you’d think – no olives or feta cheese – just a healthy amount of cinnamon and allspice rubbed into the skin-on chicken thighs before they are braised in a tomato and wine stock. It was just so fragrant and tasty – Yum!

On my last visit to France (and the word “last” takes on new meaning during this pandemic as I wonder if we’ll ever travel again . . . ) I was in the Lorraine region when I remarked that during my entire visit I had not tasted the celebrated local dish, quiche. Arrangements were promptly made, and quiche was served with drinks before dinner, by a chef who disdainfully told me that we “never serve quiche here.” (I can only throw my hands in the air and exclaim “THE FRENCH”! when I think of it. They should serve quiche more often – and more civilly.) It was delicious. Since then I have it on rotation in my kitchen, using up bits and pieces of ingredients and things “going bad” in the refrigerator. This one used up the sheets of phyllo pastry left over from the Greek spinach and feta dish, Spanakopita, that I ate all of but neglected to photograph!

Last year a sale on pork loins left me with an eight pound loin (I cannot resist a food sale!) Half was butterflied, stuffed with herbs, wrapped in prosciutto and braised (with much work and little reward except that it was pretty) while the other was frozen. I thawed that for the next two dishes.

The first was a slow-cooked New England balsamic and stock braise on red potatoes and carrots. It fits the travel theme because we visit family in New England often. Coastal Maine and New Hampshire are favorites for summer fun and food, so while it wasn’t lobster rolls I was cooking, it was comfort food.

But the real reason to cook the pork, besides making room in the freezer, was for the leftover pork needed to make Cuban Sandwiches. With thinly sliced pork loin, Swiss cheese, ham, dill pickles, and two kinds of mustard layered in a crusty loaf, then pressed and grilled, these are always a favorite in our house. They were so satisfyingly chewy-delicious served with a horseradish cole slaw and a cold beer. Heaven!

There was another Cuban dish – Braised Chicken. It tasted great, but except for the raisins, olives, and capers it looked just like all the other chicken dishes pictured above. So, instead of looking at same ol’ same ol’, here’s a picture of the Cuban Sandwiches plated:

So wasn’t that a fun vacation to the culinary hotspots of the world? You got to read it and enjoy a vicarious tour through kitchens of seven countries, while I gained five pounds cooking and eating! Does that seem fair to you?

Do you like to recreate the dishes of your favorite vacation destinations? Please tell me about them in the comments below (and share the recipe!) Thanks for reading.

The post Vicarious Culinary Travel During a Pandemic appeared first on Traveling Archive.

6,000+ Evacuate Spanish Island of La Palma

Officials on the Spanish Island of La Palma, which is part of the Canary Islands archipelago, ordered more evacuations on Friday in response to intensifying activity from the Cumbre Vieja volcano. More than 6,000 people have evacuated as lava engulfed several communities. About 593 acres, with a 9.8-mile perimeter, have been affected by the flow, and 390 buildings have been destroyed, BBC reports. There are also concerns that when the lava reaches the sea, it could create dangerous plumes of gas that could cause eye, lung, and skin irritations. Meanwhile, the eruptions, which have occurred for six straight days, have created a large ash cloud, which has forced flight cancellations and is now drifting toward the Spanish mainland. [BBC, CNN]

World’s Historical Landmarks

With the prospects of travelling again at the tips of our fingers, all of us are eager to visit monuments in a different country so magnificent we just can’t resist sharing on our social accounts. With this in mind, TheKnowledgeAcademy.com sought to find out which of the world’s historical landmarks is the most popular on social media by combining the total social shares across Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.

Key Findings:

• Tulum tops the charts as the most popular historical landmark across social media, earning a whopping 1,584,562,637 hashtags and pins. Located along the picturesque coastline of Mexico, it’s almost impossible not to share Tulum’s idyllic white sand beaches and Mayan ruins while you are there! Winning by a landslide, Tulum also ranks first with the most shares on TikTok (1,576,600,000) compared to the Eiffel Tower which comes in second with (398,895,800).
• In second place with more than 400 million social shares is Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower. Nestled in the beautiful grassy Champ de Mars park, the lattice tower figure has dominated social media feeds for many years. This iconic French landmark also earns the title as the most shared site on both Instagram (8,253,820) and Pinterest (312,675).
• Taj Mahal in India takes third place with 352,758,040 shares on social media. The beautiful mausoleum hewn from white marble and its elegant lotus dome draws more than 7 million tourists every year.
• In fourth is Machu Picchu in Peru with more than 199 million shares. The ruins of the Incan citadel are set atop Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains and overlooks the majestic Urubamba River which makes it a must-post on socials.
• In fifth place with 146,482,664 shares is the Statue of Liberty Monument in the United States. Holding up the torch of enlightenment on New York’s Liberty Harbour, the green-tinted statue is an unmissable share on socials for visitors from all over the globe.
• The Mayan city Teotihuacán places tenth with 38,406,867 shares across social media. Located just outside Mexico City, Teotihuacán is home to ruins of a major central road, the Street of the Dead, as well as the Pyramid of the Sun. The perfect collision of scenic views and culture has made Teotihuacán a popular addition to social feeds.
• Mexico dominates the top 10 charts, with three landmarks making the ranks (Tulum, Chichén Itzá, and Teotihuacán).

EU Set to Add United States to Safe Travel List

European Union governments agreed on Wednesday to add the United States to their list of countries from which they will allow non-essential travel, EU diplomats said. Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 countries approved the addition of the United States and five other countries at a meeting on Wednesday, with the change to take effect in the coming days.

Albania, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Serbia and Taiwan will be added, while Chinese administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau will be included with a requirement for reciprocity removed.

EU countries are recommended gradually to lift travel restrictions for the current eight countries on the list – Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.

Individual EU countries can still opt to demand a negative COVID-19 test or a period of quarantine.

Courtesy Aine Givens, ARCAMAX

Travel to many top destinations around the world was severely curtailed or even stalled for much of 2020 as the world grappled with the coronavirus pandemic. A year later, these locations are beginning to welcome the return of visitors.

Countries Most Dependent on Tourism

Courtesy World Trade Council

Here are the top 30 locations globally that will need an influx of big-spending visitors as soon as it is safe to welcome them. Data is from the World Travel and Tourism Council. It includes direct, indirect and induced impacts of travel and tourism.

Destinations and total travel and tourism contribution to GDP as percentage of total GDP to that economy:

• Macau SAR, China 91.3
• Aruba 73.6
• UK Virgin Islands 57
• Maldives 56.6
• US Virgin Islands 55.5
• Bahamas 43.3
• Antigua and Barbuda 42.7
• St Lucia 40.7
• Grenada 40.5
• Seychelles 40.5
• Cape Verde 37.2
• Belize 37.2
• Anguilla 37.1
• Dominica 36.9
• Vanuatu 34.7
• Fiji 34
• Montenegro 32.1
• Jamaica 31.1
• Barbados 30.9
• Other Oceania* 28.6
• St. Vincent and the Grenadines 28.6
• St. Kitts and Nevis 28.2
• Cambodia 26.4
• Georgia 26.3
• Cayman Islands 25.2
• Philippines 25.3
• Croatia 25
• Former Netherlands Antilles 23.5
• Iceland 22.8
• Albania 21.2

*Other Oceania includes American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Samoa and Tuvalu.

The Most Luxurious All-inclusive Resorts Around the World

COURTESY LINDSAY TIGAR , MAYA KACHROO-LEVINE & ELIZABETH RHODES; T+L Daily Transporter

(Each property has been reviewed and inspected by T+L Daily Transporter editorial team.

Pikaia Lodge, Galapagos Islands

Off the coast of Ecuador in the Galapagos Islands, travelers will find Pikaia Lodge, a luxury all-inclusive catering to active and adventurous types. Built entirely from recycled materials, the property is 100 percent carbon neutral and sits between two inactive volcano craters on Santa Cruz Island. It features 14 gorgeous suites set on a private giant tortoise reserve. As for activities here, guests can participate in small group, guided marine programs, which explore neighboring islands and notable wildlife sites in Galapagos National Park while on board the lodge’s 105-foot luxury yacht.

Luxury Galapagos adventure | Pikaia Lodge

Hurawalhi Island Resort, Maldives

When you imagine the Maldives, a beautiful bungalow oasis in the middle of the Indian Ocean is likely what filters through your mind. A 40-minute seaplane flight from Male Airport, guests at Hurawalhi Island Resort are tucked away from the rest of the world, surrounded by the kind of blue you can’t create, even with an Instagram filter. Here, you can choose from ocean villas or beach villas, each of which include king-sized beds, private terraces, and for those over water, access to the waves. Meals and alcoholic beverages are included within the nightly rate, with the option to upgrade to more fine-dining options (like a visit to the Champagne Pavilion), if your getaway calls for a celebration. Each villa also has access to sunset dolphin cruises, kayaks, snorkeling equipment, yoga classes, and more.

Maldives Luxury All Inclusive Resort – Adults Only Luxury Maldives Resort (hurawalhi.com)

andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana

As one of the top safari destinations on nearly every traveler’s bucket list, Botswana offers an incomparable glimpse into the heart of Africa. This luxury all-inclusive is located on the renowned Okavango Delta in the northern region of the country. When it rains over these massive, grassy plains, animals flock to the area, creating the opportunity to see rhinos, giraffes, lions, and more. To elevate your experience, andBeyond doesn’t disappoint with included safari and river boat tours, as well as meals, drinks, and round-trip airport transfers. andBeyond Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge | Botswana Luxury Safari

The Singular Patagonia, Puerto Bories, Chile

After successfully completing any of the strenuous hikes of Patagonia, it’s worth splurging on a luxury resort to recuperate. And if you’d like to go big, book a stay at The Singular Patagonia, which lies deep in southern Chile, overlooking the iconic Fjord of Last Hope. Set on 30 acres, the site was once the Bories cold storage plant in the early 1900s, serving as a focal point for the sheep farming industry. Today, though, it features 57 meticulously designed rooms that’ll have you at ease from the moment you enter. The nightly “Complete Experience” rate includes all food and alcohol, as well as daily excursions such as horseback riding, kayaking, and more local activities. And if you need to soak away the soreness from travel and hiking, every guest has access to the spa facilities for the duration of their stay as well.

www.thesingular.com

Tongabezi Lodge, Simonga, Zambia

The border between Zambia and Zimbabwe is home to the legendary Victoria Falls, which is twice as high as Niagara Falls and often considered among the most powerful – and jaw-dropping – natural wonders in the world. Though this beautiful work of Mother Nature is enough of an attraction for many travelers, when you stay at this five-star property in southern Africa, you have many other unique experiences to choose from, too. Think: an early morning game drive to see lions, hyenas, or elephants, a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River, or a guided tour of the falls – these are just a few of the experiences Tongabezi offers. No matter how you’d like to spend your African vacation, when you stay at this property, home to over-the-top houses and cottages, your private valet can arrange it all.

Tongabezi Lodge (greensafaris.com)

El Dorado Maroma, A Spa Resort by Karisma, Riviera Maya, Mexico

As overwater bungalows become more and more Instagram famous, oceanside resorts around the world are finding ways to recreate the virality generated in the Maldives. For a much shorter flight, but an equally luxe experience, El Dorado Maroma’s Palafitos – Overwater Bungalows were the first oversea chalets on the Riviera Maya. Far from the party in Cancun, 30 modern and pristine suites are perched over the green waters of Maroma Beach, a private stretch of powder-white sand that’s often considered a hidden gem of Mexico. Each of these suites include glass-bottom floors, outdoor showers, private infinity pools, indoor Jacuzzis, and direct ladder access to the water. With the nightly rate, you’ll also enjoy a gourmet dining experience.

El Dorado Maroma (karismahotels.com)

Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle, Thailand

Where Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand meet, golden memories are made, allowing ambitious travelers to cross off three countries simultaneously. For those who want the star-studded experience on the Thailand corner of the triangle, a stay at this beloved Four Seasons property is a must. Depending on what you seek out of your vacation, there are various all-inclusive packages to choose from. Each inclusive option offers guests meals and alcohol, as well as one spa treatment per person, elephant encounters, and round-trip transfers to the nearby airport. Because of its proximity to other Southeast Asian countries, some excursions could include trips to Myanmar or Laos, giving you more time to immerse yourself in the local culture.

Luxury Camping in Thailand | Four Seasons Golden Triangle

Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

For certified scuba divers or those who prioritize seclusion during vacation, why not stay away from the mainland on an island all to yourself? Actually, make that an all-inclusive resort on the storied Great Barrier Reef. With 24 beaches and 40 luxury suites, you can enjoy practically endless options for exploring some of the most stunning natural wonders on the planet. Seafood lovers, take note: Nearly all of your meals include creative culinary takes on the catch of the day. Many activities – from snorkeling to stand-up paddle boarding – offer a unique perspective of this tropical oasis, all for no additional fee.

Great Barrier Reef Luxury Accommodation | Lizard Island

Fairmont Mayakoba, Mexico

Though it’s not an all-inclusive in the traditional sense, the Fairmont Mayakoba offers an all-inclusive package that gives you access to all of the restaurants and most alcoholic beverages at the resort. Unlike many more crowded parts of Mexico, Mayakoba provides a private and serene getaway in the Riviera Maya region. As the largest resort of this eco-luxury destination, Fairmont gives its guests the chance to not only explore the fine-dining options, but also an ecological immersion, too. When you’re not pool-hopping or riding bikes through the winding paths of the property, you can take a boat tour to learn about the local wildlife and brush up on your botany knowledge.

Bluefields Bay Villas, Jamaica

Bluefields Bay Villas is home to a collection of six all-inclusive luxury villas with all the bells and whistles built in. On the southern coast of Jamaica, where the vibrant countryside meets the Caribbean Sea, you can choose from two- to six-bedroom homes, all featuring private pools, a butler, maid service, a chef, and access to the beach nearby. You can work with your personal chef to create delectable meals suited to your palette and preferences. Also included: paddle boarding, kayaking, snorkeling, tennis, hiking, and other activities. If you want to make your vacation even fancier, Bluefields Bay can arrange for luxurious add-ons like private helicopter transfers.

Jamaica All-Inclusive Luxury Resort | Villa Rentals | Bluefields Bay (bluefieldsvillas.com)

Twin Farms, Barnard, Vermont

A luxurious retreat nestled in the Vermont mountains, Twin Farms is an adults-only culinary destination. At Vermont’s only five-star, all-inclusive Relais & Châteaux resort, guests enjoy meals by chefs who create innovative daily menus with the state’s best produce – sourced from the property and top local and regional vendors. Make sure to pamper yourself during your stay, with a facial, massage, or seasonal treatment at The Bridge House Spa. And while you can’t choose incorrectly when selecting your lodging at Twin Farms, we’re partial to their 950-square-foot cottages, which come with a fireplace and stone hot tub.

Inclusive Vermont Resort and Spa | Twin Farms

Kokomo Private Island, Fiji

Fiji’s most exclusive resort, Kokomo Private Island, is set on the otherworldly Great Astrolabe Reef. The inclusive offerings range from water-based activities and tennis court access to restaurants serving island-grown and locally-sourced produce. A 45-minute seaplane or helicopter ride from Nadi, Kokomo sits within the Kadavu Island Group. The five-star, 140-acre property is a haven for couples and families, and is a perfect spot for a multi-generational family retreat. Guests can sign on for shark diving, waterfall hikes, manta ray swims, and even coral reef restoration with Kokomo’s on-site marine biologist.

www.kokomoislandfiji.com-

Acupuncture for Organizations

By Dr. Kathleen Allen

I’ve been reading Stuck?: Dealing With Organizational Trauma by Phillipe Bailleur, an organizational consultant who works with a living systems mindset. In Bailleur’s words, organizational trauma can’t be fixed, like a car going in for repair. Instead, as leaders, we need to learn how to heal our organization. Because humans and any other living systems organization can only be healed – not fixed.

Our organizations (and the people in them) have been adapting at an accelerated rate for more than 16 months. It doesn’t matter that some of the adaptations we’ve made were already ideas that existed before the pandemic. These preexisting ideas, like remote work environments, were present but still being met with resistance in many cases. The pandemic made that resistance obsolete, and our organizations had to adapt very quickly.

Even though an idea may be “familiar” rapid adaptation still created some form of trauma, mainly because the new routines were not part of our individual and organizational habits. And this new way of working from home rippled across other aspects of our lives, not the least of which was childcare as our kids were also forced to learn at home, and daycares were closed. Adapting to this new remote workstyle impacted many aspects of our lives, from how we showed up at work, to how we interacted with our teams. The fact that many of us had to wear so many different hats at once, particularly parents, created the need for even more sudden adaptations.
The impact of all this adaptation has to be described as trauma that happened to us as individuals and collectively to our organizations. The question now becomes – how do we begin our own healing?

Truncating our Regenerative Capacity

Just like nature, humans have a natural regenerative capacity. But sometimes we don’t nurture this capacity within ourselves. Instead of choosing to listen to our body and respond with an act or space that nourishes us, we outsource our healing to a doctor, a therapist, or perhaps a medication. This practice of seeking solutions elsewhere is sometimes necessary, but the choice doesn’t have to be our first response. My colleague Suzanne Koepplinger is the Executive Director of the Catalyst Initiative. The Catalyst Initiative is helping people understand that primary care is self-care! The Initiative focuses on integrated health and healing practices that are culturally specific and acts as an excellent resource for anyone interested in nurturing their own regenerative, healing capacity.

We need to remember when we don’t take care of ourselves, we cut ourselves off from integrated healing practices like yoga, meditation, acupuncture, Tai Chi, healing circles, and other activities that build our own resilience and strengthen our health. And that slows down our ability to regenerate.

Organizational Acupuncture

On an organizational level, we aren’t particularly good at healing either. Trauma from work experiences (including those caused by the pandemic) is real and occurring in our organizations every day. At a micro level, an action that breaks trust, for example when colleagues or leaders lie to us or when an expected reward is not forthcoming, is a source of trauma. A positional leader who becomes a toxic leader is another example of a trauma that may have far more reaching effects. Suddenly transforming a workplace into a remote or virtual organization causes trauma, even if the adaptation was expected or happening already in some fashion.
What would organizational acupuncture look like to you and your organization?

Johns Hopkins Medicine describes acupuncture as part of the ancient practice of Traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe the human body has more than 2,000 acupuncture points connected by pathways or meridians. These pathways create an energy flow called Qi (pronounced “chee”) through the body that is responsible for overall health. Disruption of the energy flow can cause disease. By applying acupuncture to certain points, it is thought to improve the flow of Qi, thereby improving health.

A living organization also has energy flowing through it, and at times experiences a disruption or disturbance of the energy flow. When this occurs, organizational acupuncture becomes the practice of paying attention to disruption and trauma – instead of ignoring them the way we usually do. If as leaders we commit to noticing disturbances or trauma, we can help our organizations, teams, and individuals heal from trauma and regenerate more quickly. As a result, positive energy should return to the workplace much more rapidly.

We don’t usually track energy as a metric for the health of our organizations. Usually, we default to a profit margin or traditional bottom line to determine it’s health. But focusing on profit often means we tolerate behaviors that lead to dysfunction in the organization. Frankly, we don’t pay attention to what we don’t measure. And we need to measure the energy of our organizations if we are truly to lead with a living systems mindset.
I believe that people wake up each morning and decide if they are going to bring positive, negative, or neutral energy to their workplaces. Positive energy and energy flow help improve an individual’s health. The same is true for organizations because at the most basic level, what are they other than a collection of individuals?

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Why These Eight Mexico City Neighborhoods Are Worth Planning Your Next Trip Around

by Michael Snyder

There are few places as dynamic, diverse, or downright enormous as the Mexican capital. In a city layered with history, in which change is an essential part of residents’ DNA, where to begin planning a trip? Michael Snyder, a freelance journalist based in Mexico City. gives his breakdown of the key colonias to visit, whether your focus is shopping, food, art, or design.

A little more than two years ago, I moved to Mexico City more or less sight unseen, taking it on good faith that this urban giant could find space for one more body among the 21 million that already called its metro area home. I came, like many foreigners before me, with vague ideas about its vibrant food and art scenes; its crooked glamour and effortless cool; its rich colonial and modern architectural landscape. I expected to find moments of enervating chaos and sometimes choking smog. But I was rejuvenated by gracious parks and sublime weather, by crisp autumn mornings and springlike afternoons, by spasms of rain and hail and thunder that gave way, just in time, to marigold sunsets blooming across the horizon. Mexico City, it seems, is able to turn a different face to each and every one of its inhabitants.

That’s because, in the past five centuries, Mexico City has become a master of transformation. Flung wide across a seismic, high-altitude plateau, North America’s largest city has survived colonial conquest, years-long floods, a bloody war of independence, a bloodier revolution, and, in 1985, a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 9,000 and decimated much of the historic central borough of Cuauhtémoc. Thirty-two years later to the day, in 2017, another quake shook the city to its core, bringing down over 40 buildings and damaging many more. Within weeks, the city had bounced back from that, too. Chilangos, as residents are known, continue to deal with shoddy governance, shoddy infrastructure, and fluctuating levels of security. Given the choice, many would just as soon return to the villages they left a generation or three before. But many more – myself included – wouldn’t live anywhere else.

No one trip is enough to unlock the city’s many wonders. For a first-time visitor, sticking to the leafy neighborhoods in and around the Delegación Cuauhtémoc offers an ideal introduction: a walkable, manageable microcosm of the city’s wild, sophisticated whole. From the cockeyed grandeur of the Centro Histórico to the discreet galleries of Santa María la Ribera and the glamorous cafés of Condesa, these are the eight districts every visitor should get to know.

Centro Histórico

Late one Sunday morning, I set out from my home on the far side of the Zócalo, Mexico City’s spectacular central plaza, to the Mercado San Juan. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but, like most routes through the Centro Histórico, it encompassed many pasts, many presents, and many possible futures. Here you’ll find opulent colonial palaces, crooked Baroque churches, murals by Diego Rivera at the Palacio Nacional and the Secretariat of Public Education headquarters, and the magnificent ruins of the Templo Mayor, the axis of the Aztec Empire’s religious and political universe.

Until the late 1800s, the Centro was Mexico City. Then, from the turn of the century onward, modernity-obsessed elites began abandoning their ancestral homes and moving to the newly created suburbs in the west and south. After the 1985 earthquake, the Centro was all but abandoned. It remained an important place of protest and celebration, but it was not a place you lingered.

Entering the open doorway of the Mercado San Juan, I passed vendors selling rambutans and mangoes, plastic boxes of microgreens, and giant clams from Baja. But I hadn’t come here to shop (for that I go to Mercado la Merced, the bigger, crazier, more beautiful wholesale market on my side of the Centro). Instead, I had come to eat at Don Vergas, an eight-seat market stall that, for the past year, has been turning out some of the best seafood in Mexico City.

Chef Luis Valle, who hails from the northwestern coastal state of Sinaloa, had opened shop only an hour earlier, but already a rowdy line had filled the aisle, singing along to the banda music playing through a loudspeaker perched precariously over the tiny kitchen. “How many crab tostadas?” Valle shouted over the music. Hands shot up: 15 orders.

I slipped behind the bar to help squeeze a few limes and hang out with Valle, who makes great company, no matter how busy he is. I asked how many people he would cook for today. “About 400,” he said. I asked how he coped. “I don’t!” he laughed, then turned back to the crowd, shouting: “How many scallops?”

Even a decade ago, you’d have been hard-pressed to find such excitement surrounding a restaurant in this part of town. But in the past year or so, pop-up parties have begun to appear on rooftops, in basements, and at run-down cantinas like the bizarre and beautiful La Faena, decorated with dusty shadow boxes of toreadors’ costumes. Edgy art galleries have appeared in former office buildings. Bósforo, still the top place in town for mezcal almost 10 years after it opened, draws crowds on weekends, while the nameless restaurant next door serves impeccable Oaxacan food by flickering candlelight.

But despite the fact that a new, younger generation is now gravitating to the Centro, it’s still a place that belongs to everyone. Activists stage regular protests in the Zócalo. Residents from around the city come to shop at stores selling everything from spices to light fixtures and giant handmade candles decorated in lacy wax flowers. Government workers stop in at century-old cantinas for an afternoon beer (try La Ópera for gilded old-world opulence, or Salón España for the city’s best tequila list). Even the exorbitantly expensive Mercado San Juan, where Luis Valle slings his seafood, has a raucous weekend party. Nowhere in this immense, stratified city is more democratic or more beautiful.

Roma & Condesa

At the northern edge of Colonia Roma, a trickle of young, stylish people wandered in and out of a heavy glass door that swung open onto Calle Puebla. They followed a bend of stairs past tall white gallery walls and out onto a sunny roof terrace surrounded by treetops. Monserrat Castera, beer in hand, led me from the open patio into a small, glass-walled room at one corner to show me around the latest edition of her pop-up shop, Momo Room – one of a growing number of nomadic retail spaces now at the vanguard of Mexico’s fashion scene.

This iteration, she explained, was inspired by Juan Rulfo, the mid-20th-century writer whose works are widely considered to be among the finest ever written in Mexico. Rulfo set two of his most important books in a fictional town in the small coastal state of Colima. Among objects selected from local designers, Castera had scattered photographs of Colima, burlap sacks of the state’s famous sea salt, and handwoven straw hats. There were also playful sunglasses from French-Mexican collective Stromboli Associates; handmade box bags in wood and leather by Aurelia, a brand run by three sisters from Guadalajara; and embroidered linen kimonos dyed with indigo and cochineal from local label Korimi Kids. None of these designers had a brick-and-mortar shop. After all, in a city obsessed with collaboration, and replete with spectacular spaces ideal for short-term group exhibitions, what would be the point?

When Mexico City was named the World Design Capital for 2018, many ascribed the distinction to an aesthetic that brings Mexico’s disparate creative traditions – from textiles and earthenware to the great Modernist boom of the 1950s – into conversation with one another. Though that sensibility has existed in Mexico for generations, it has become newly fashionable in Roma and Condesa, two of the capital’s most design-forward neighborhoods. You can witness it at stores like quirky clothing boutique Hi-Bye, at the shops lining the uneven sidewalks of the beautiful Calle Colima, and at Ven a Mi – an appointment-only showroom selling unusual crafts from around the country.

After the 1985 earthquake, many residents fled Roma, and it was well over a decade before artists and designers began moving back into its gracefully dilapidated Beaux-Arts mansions. Condesa, which was the city’s most cosmopolitan neighborhood during the 1930s and 40s, experienced a shorter decline, having rebounded by the mid 90s. With its pretty Art Deco and Mission-style apartments and even prettier residents, Condesa is today the grande dame of Mexico City colonias – stylish, elegant, but never trying too hard. Condesa and Roma were also among the areas most heavily damaged in the 2017 earthquake, but this time both returned to life with remarkable speed. Were it not for a handful of empty buildings dotting the area, deep cracks running like vines through their white plaster exteriors, you might not know that anything had happened here at all.

And while the dialogue between tradition and innovation found its way into restaurant kitchens at least a decade ago in places like Enrique Olvera’s Pujol, in the swanky Polanco area, Roma and Condesa have taken the lead in translating it into more casual – though no less ambitious – settings. At the year-old restaurant Meroma, wife-and-husband team Mercedes Bernal and Rodney Cusic offer some of the neighborhoods’ most refined cooking, taking inspiration from local ingredients, rather than traditional dishes, to create a subtly eclectic menu. And at El Parnita, a family-run taco joint that got hip as the district did, young diners line up for a lunch of fish tacos and craft beer.

And at the chaotic, nameless open kitchen next door, a young chef named Jesús Salas Tornés creates consistently delicious, interesting dishes that bring the flavors, techniques, and oddball informality of the countryside straight to the heart of the city.

Santa María La Ribera & San Rafael

Not long after I moved to Mexico City, I climbed a flight of terrazzo stairs leading to a buzzing, dimly lit terrace in Santa María la Ribera, an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood northwest of the Centro. Glamorous in its turn-of-the-20th-century heyday, Santa María, the first planned suburb of the Centro, was, by the 1950s, overshadowed by neighborhoods like Roma and Condesa. On that chilly evening, however, it was hard to imagine anywhere more elegant.

In the 17 years since Zonamaco, the city’s mammoth weeklong art fair, launched, Mexico City has become an essential stop for regulars on the international art circuit and young artists looking to create and show work in a dynamic, affordable environment. A few nights before the gathering on the terrace, Art Week had started – an annual event that includes Zonamaco and its daring younger sibling, the Material Art Fair. Around me was a crowd of local gallerists, artists from Mexico and abroad, and assorted global movers and shakers. They’d come to celebrate the recent opening of the Mexico City outpost of Casa Wabi, the Tadao Ando-designed artists’ retreat in Oaxaca, on Mexico’s southern coast. Mezcal flowed freely as fairy lights twinkled along with the neon sign for a cheap hotel across the street.

Between them, Santa María and the adjacent area of San Rafael are home to more than a dozen galleries and art spaces. Some represent internationally recognized artists, but most are like Casa Wabi: alternative, informal spaces for young Mexican artists. On a recent morning, I stopped by the gallery to see an exhibition of earthenware pieces by a Swiss resident at the Oaxaca center, displayed alongside Midcentury Modern furniture sold by the design shop Decada. The small space on the ground floor showed work by a photographer from the northern state of Sonora – endless desert horizons punctuated by fragments of industrial architecture. “Mexico City is a nursery for the rest of the country,” said Carla Sodi, director of the Casa Wabi Foundation, as we sat one morning on a balcony overlooking an ordinary street that was waking to the working day. “Eventually, these artists will go back home and plant those seeds.”

Santa María and San Rafael have always been low-key repositories for Mexican design. Around Santa María’s gracious alameda, or central park, families move up and down the marble stairs of the gorgeously old-fashioned Geology Museum, built in 1910, while old couples dance beneath the flamboyant glass dome of the Moorish Kiosk, erected here in the same year. The Art Nouveau towers of the Museo Universitario del Chopo, an important center for contemporary art, soar over a street that, in the early 1980s, was the locus for the city’s punk and goth scenes. The ruins of Cine Opera, a now-defunct Art Deco cinema, stand like a sentinel at San Rafael’s northern edge. And the abstract minimalism of the Museo Experimental El Eco, built in the 1950s by the celebrated artist and designer Mathias Goeritz, brackets San Rafael’s south.

Yet despite all these monuments, both neighborhoods remain typical middle-class barrios. Santa María’s neighborhood tamale shop, Cintli, is my favorite in all of Mexico City. Beer and tequila abound at the local cantina Salón París, and La Polar in San Rafael serves steaming bowls of birria, a regional beef stew, accompanied by raucous mariachi bands playing late into the night.

Juarez & Colonia Cuauhtémoc

The glass-and-steel towers lining Mexico City’s grand ceremonial avenue, Paseo de la Reforma, burst from the low-slung concrete grid like volcanic peaks, monuments to globalist prosperity erupting from the city’s ancient lake bed. Reforma connects the Centro to the Bosque de Chapultepec, the city’s biggest park, and the trio of art institutions clustered at its northern end – the Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tamayo Museum for contemporary art.

For much of the last century, the neighborhoods that flank Reforma – Colonia Cuauhtémoc to the north and Juarez to the south – were the center of the city’s international population. Wealthy Mexican families, foreigners, and diplomats were drawn here by embassies and banks and streets named for the great rivers and cities of the world they once called home: Ganges, Danubio, and Rhin; Londres, Hamburgo, and Berlín. From their development in the early 20th century onward, these areas have expressed Mexico’s global ambitions. They still do.

Ryo Kan, a guesthouse that opened in April in Cuauhtémoc, takes its neighborhood’s global spirit to heart, bringing the intimate calm of the traditional Japanese inns it’s named after to the heart of the Mexican capital. While other new boutique hotels in the city revel in Mexico’s mid-century elegance, Ryo Kan is tranquil and subdued, compact and efficient, a meditation in pale oak and terrazzo. “Japan and Mexico have a lot in common – our ceramics, our textiles, our uses of natural materials. We wanted to find those parallels,” says Regina Galvanduque, the lead architect on the Ryo Kan project.

Ryo Kan is the most recent of a number of Japanese-inspired businesses to open along Cuauhtémoc’s subdued, tree-lined streets. In the past six years, the Edo Kobayashi restaurant group, run by Edo López, has created a small empire there, with an izakaya and ramen spot called Rokai, a tiny bar called Le Tachinomi Desu serving sake and natural wines, and a listening bar inspired by Tokyo’s Ginza Music Bar.

Wander a few minutes south into the Zona Rosa, the historic gay neighborhood at the center of Colonia Juarez, and you’ll find it hard not to feel transported. Banners for cheap cafés, Korean lunch joints, and neon-lit gay bars obscure the façades of old houses built in an inexplicable (and inexplicably pleasing) hodgepodge of architectural styles from France, Italy, Britain, and Spain.

In the evenings, crowds spill onto the broad pavement of Plaza Washington from the garage-like edifice of Cicatriz, an all-day café run by a sister-brother team of American expats, Scarlett and Jake Lindeman. Most of their customers – who come for coffee and cocktails, natural wines, and fried-chicken sandwiches – wouldn’t look out of place in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris. That’s because many of them hail from just those places: the most recent group of immigrants to call Juarez home.

San Miguel Chapultepec

The long communal table that runs down the center of the restaurant Masala y Maíz had been laid out with bowls of spices – some of them familiar to Mexican palates (cumin, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper), others (coriander seed, ginger, and star anise) less so. Chefs Norma Listman, originally from the nearby town of Texcoco, and Saqib Keval, born in northern California to an Indian family from East Africa, circulated, greeting guests. Seated at the center of the table, the restaurant’s first artist in residence, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, began her talk on the origins of Indian chai. The conversation then segued to the spices in front of us and how some made their way into Mexican kitchens.

Masala y Maíz had opened a few months earlier in the quietly elegant colonia of San Miguel Chapultepec, a triangle of leafy streets that separates Condesa from the Bosque de Chapultepec. Right away, it was a space obsessed with hybridity: an artists’ residency, an ambitious full-service restaurant, and a coffee shop serving house-made doughnuts from a window connecting the kitchen to the street. That evening, it was also a workshop for a handful of curious people, an event that was local in its reach, yet cosmopolitan in its vision.

For Listman and Keval, the menu at Masala y Maíz is a reflection of the mestizaje, or cultural mixing, that has defined Mexican culture since the Spanish conquest. Here, huevos rancheros come with South Indian uttapam flatbreads in place of tortillas. Giant prawns are coated in Ethiopian berbere and served with jicama and rose water. Patra de hoja santa, a riff on an Indian snack of spiced chickpea batter, trades the traditional taro leaf for southern Mexico’s emblematic herb, hoja santa.

San Miguel was not an obvious choice for this kind of restaurant. Peaceful and residential, the area is best known for its access to the Bosque de Chapultepec, never more than a few blocks away; for the pretty cobblestoned lanes that line its southern side; and for the beloved white-tablecloth cantina, El Mirador de Chapultepec, that has been a favorite among city politicians for decades. It’s also notable for its proximity to several essential design institutions, including the influential gallery Kurimanzutto, which turns 20 this year. Casa Luis Barragán, the former home of Mexico’s Pritzker-winning 20th-century architectural master Luis Barragán, lies just beyond the colonia’s western edge, and the renowned Archivo de Diseño y Arquitectura exhibition space sits right next door to Barragán’s house.

San Miguel is a perfect place for peaceful walks past magnificent private homes secreted away behind humble Neocolonial façades, for whiling away hours in quiet corners of the Bosque de Chapultepec, or for sipping hibiscus mead brewed right here in the city, a specialty at Masala y Maíz. It’s also a perfect place to reflect on something Chilangos have known for ages: that Mexico City isn’t just the capital of the Spanish-speaking world, or the biggest city in North America. A city of immigrants and innovation, built and rebuilt with a zealous lust for the new, blasted by tragedy, sustained by passion and pragmatism – Ciudad de México is, and always has been, the great city of the Americas.

Plan a Perfect Stay in Mexico City

For a manageable microcosm of this vast metropolis, stick to these parts of the historic Cuauhtémoc borough. Pick one as your base, and spend your days exploring the others.

Getting Around
Despite its size, Mexico City is relatively easy to navigate, particularly if you stay within the central neighborhoods. Comfortable year-round temperatures make it a great city for walking. The Metro is the most efficient way to cover longer distances, though it’s best avoided at rush hour. Uber is also a good option here.

Centro Histórico

Hotels
The Downtown Mexico (doubles from $230), set in a 17th-century palace, has an elegant rooftop bar and pool.

Eat & Drink
Arrive early to avoid the crowds at Don Vergas (Calle Motolinia 32; entrées $7-$32), which serves some of the city’s best seafood. Since time of reporting, the restaurant has moved from the Mercado San Juan to this new location, also in the Centro Histórico. Dip into a historic cantina like Salón España (25 Avda. República de Argentina), La Ópera (10 Cinco de Mayo), or La Faena (49 Venustiano Carranza) to break up a day of sightseeing. For dinner, stop at the beloved mezcal bar Bósforo (31 Luis Moya), then try the chic, nameless restaurant next door (entrées $8-$12).

Activities
Shop for whimsical fashion at Hi-Bye, and pick up a bottle of mezcal at Sabrá Diós (15 Avda. Veracruz), in Condesa. If you’re interested in local crafts, make an appointment to visit the showroom at Ven a Mi and keep an eye out for retail pop-ups like Momo Room.

Santa María la Ribera & San Rafael

Hotels
The boutique hotel El Patio 77 (doubles from $125) makes for a peaceful base in a central but relatively unexplored area.

Eat & Drink
Find the best tamales in the city at Cintli (174 Calle Sabino), a no-frills storefront in Santa María la Ribera. Salón París (152 Jaime Torres Bodet) is a great traditional cantina, while La Polar (birria $7) makes superb birria (beef stew).

Activities
The magnificent Geology Museum, in Santa María’s main plaza, has a beautifully displayed collection. For contemporary art, don’t miss Casa Wabi (casawabi.org) and the Museo Experimental El Eco, a masterpiece of mid-century Mexican design.

Juarez & Colonia Cuauhtémoc

Hotels
The newly opened Ryo Kan (doubles from $150) brings Japanese tranquility to the city’s business district.

Eat & Drink
You’ll find some of Mexico City’s best international restaurants in these neighborhoods, from small plates at natural-wine bar Le Tachinomi Desu (small plates $5-$8) to a remarkable omakase at Sushi Kyo (set menus from $75). Salón Ríos (218 Río Lerma; entrées $8-$30) is a great place for updated Mexican classics, while Cicatriz (entrées $3-$6) is ideal for a salad or an evening cocktail.

Activities
The Anthropology Museum has an extraordinary collection of Mesoamerican artifacts. Next door, Museo Tamayo shows modern, contemporary, and folk art, while the Museo de Arte Moderno focuses, as its name suggests, on modern art.

San Miguel Chapultepec

Eat & Drink
The menu at Masala y Maíz (small plates $5-$9) explores the commonalities among the cuisines of Mexico, India, and East Africa, while El Mirador de Chapultepec (sharing plates $7-$10) is one of the city’s classic cantinas.

Activities
Book well in advance for a tour of Casa Luis Barragán, former home of the Pritzker-winning architect. Nearby, Casa Gilardi, the last house Barragán built before his death, also offers tours by appointment. Next door to the Barragán house is the Archivo de Diseño y Arquitectura, a small exhibition space and reading room devoted to Mexican design with a beautiful garden in back. Twenty years after opening, Kurimanzutto, in the neighborhood’s peaceful heart, is still among the most influential galleries in North America.

Michael Snyder is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City, specializing in food, architecture, travel and culture. He is a regular contributor to T Magazine and has written for a range of publications including the New York Times, the LA Times, The Believer, The Nation, Scientific American, The Caravan, Lucky Peach, Travel + Leisure, Saveur, Food & Wine, Punch, Eater and Roads & Kingdoms, among others.)

Best Time to Use a Plane Lavatory

Expert: Erika Roth, former flight attendant
Time Limit: Five minutes, 10 max. Twenty minutes will get you a knock on the door
The Best Time to Go: As soon as the seatbelt sign is off, before drink service begins.

The Method: According to Roth, who encountered numerous splashdowns in her eight years on the job, unless you’re on a long-haul flight with multiple lavatory options, your best bet is to hold it, as odor is a problem in the cramped cabin of an airplane. “Close quarters, poor ventilation and a lack of efficient plumbing — to be blunt, the stench can fill a cabin quickly,” she explains.

If you have to go, Roth suggests an old flight-attendant trick: “Ask an attendant for packets of coffee grounds, then hang them up in the lavatory. The grounds will soak up the odor.” Of course, the flight attendants will know exactly what you’re doing in there, but your fellow passengers will be none the wiser.

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