Blogs

From Stage to Screen

Best known as a Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof has been delighting audiences for almost half a century with its blend of boisterous and mournful melodies. The Tony award winning story of Tevye, the humble milkman with five young daughters and a feisty wife, has played out thousands of times on the stages of Broadway, London’s West End and in theatres all around the world.

With such a popular stage play it was inevitable that a movie version would be made and in 1971

I watched the horse, as if  possessed by the devil, run at full speed, urged on by a charro (Mexico’s answer to the cowboy). It was useless though; there was no possible way out. The circular arena, called a lienzo, only allows for running in circles. Meanwhile, in the middle of the ring, another impeccably spiffy charro, with coffee-colored hues on his boots, pants, jacket and shirt, whips his lasso, twirling it in the air, waiting for the charger (called a corcel) to get close.

One turn left

por Cristóbal Ramirez

Bajo sus calles se esconde oro. Cemento, hormigón y más abajo oro. Johannesburgo se erigió sobre la riqueza de este mineral y hoy sus rascacielos brillan bajo el sol sudafricano. Pero eso fue hace mucho tiempo y hoy lo que todos tenemos en mente es el Mundial de Fútbol de este año, un evento donde la ciudad fue protagonista y demostró su capacidad (y la de todo el país) para organizar grandes acontecimientos. En el distrito cultural de Newton ya no se escuchan vuvuzelas, per

A visit to India's Corbett National Park is only a two day affair, provided you are not planning to go for excursions, which are, if not more, as exciting and enchanting as the jeep safari in Corbett Park.

There are so many other places to be seen around the Corbett National Park that one is tempted to increase the stay duration at Corbett resorts by another two days at least. Hence, if you’re planning a four-five days trip to Corbett, here are the places you definitely need to visit.

1.    T

Tall, impressive Volcano Arenal is at the top of everyone’s list of places to visit in Costa Rica. Towering above the rainforest that surround its base and the beautiful Lake Arenal, Volcano Arenal’s perfectly symmetrical conical shape makes it a stunning sight.

Even though Costa Rica’s most active volcano is taking a rest lately from spewing lava, gas and ash nearly every day and night, standing close to an active volcano is still a thrilling experience. The much-loved volcano entered into an in

It's an axiom among those of us who fly: You never know whom you'll be sitting next to.

Could be a fascinating character from some terrific movie, your next love or, more likely, someone you really, badly want to get away from.

New Media Travel reported on the idea of "Social Seating Solutions" (Never Sit Next to Boring People Again), so the idea of selecting one's seat mate  has been around for a while. But the enabling tool hasn't been very successfully developed or employed. And there was al

It all started as a bit of an accident. A big fan of Cuban music, American guitarist Ry Cooder had been invited to Cuba to work on a collaboration with local musicians and two well-known musical stars from Mali. When the Africans were denied entry visas to Cuba, Cooder set about creating his Plan B: A recording of Cuban son music with local musicians.

A Star is Born

The resulting album, recorded in only six days, included the title track Buena Vista Social Club and was released to critical acclaim

The Caribbean is filled with fresh from-the-tree & garden ingredients along with daily just-caught fish right off shore. Up until just 5 years ago, many Cayman Island restaurants simply had key ingredients shipped in from elsewhere instead. On the surface, this may seem like lunacy. Why not simply harvest what's in your backyard rather than have it shipped from around the globe? The answer is twofold. First, more obscure island produce couldn't be farmed and sold profitably. As a result, island

por Cristóbal Ramirez

Ella es esa novia guapa y moderna por la que todos nos envidian. Se llama Barcelona y nos lleva de la mano por las Ramblas, el paseo de la ciudad por antonomasia, que bulle a cualquier hora. Y por aquí no solo se camina: se bebe agua en la fuente de Canaletas (donde los hinchas del Barça celebran sus triunfos), se compran flores, se lee un libro sentado en un banco, se observan las actuaciones callejeras, se compra el periódico, se beben cafés, carajillos, zumos de frutas

Sarapiquí is one of my favorite places in Costa Rica.

Rust red-orange earth meets up with jade green water of the Sarapiqui River, next to fluorescent green grass and darker emerald-green, thick rainforest. Jewel-toned birds and butterflies swoop here and there, and this time of year, the cicadas bring a tumultuous cacophony to the sunshine. Colors seem more vibrant here. Maybe it’s the moisture in the sun-soaked air. Maybe it’s the abundance of nature.

Sarapiquí is considered one of the world’s m

What would you guess most determines how we choose a hotel? Price? Location? Recommendation by a friend or someone else?

In a connected social media world, it's surprising to discover that what our friends, and friends of friends recommend, say on Facebook or other sharing platforms, counts for only 6.8 % in determining what influences our hotel choices.
"Past experience" weighs in at 11.9%.

In truth, according to Hotelmarketing.com what actually influences a hotel choice is location.
For exa

I’m a huge animal lover, and I’ve been writing about vacation resorts for a few years now. These two facts might at first seem like a non-sequitur, but on my recent visit to Iberostar’s five-resort Playa Paraíso complex on Mexico’s Mayan Riviera below Cancun, they came delightedly together. 

Here not a day goes by where you won’t spot a charming critter with feathers, fins, or fur. Strolling from my room to dinner one evening at the Paraíso Maya, I came across a peacock calmly striding around t

Haiti tourism, it would appear, is once again on the march.  

Yes, thanks to its rough history, the Massachusetts-size country sharing the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic has admittedly been a tough sell from a travel standpoint for many years. And yet... Haiti also has a surprising amount to offer. Its beaches and waters are pristine (in fact, many thousands of Royal Caribbean cruisers have experienced them, since its Western Caribbean itineraries include northern H

Nestled in the Andes mountain range, Salta is a city in the heart of the Lerma Valley, at 1,152 metres (3780 feet) above sea level in the north west part of Argentina. Along with its metropolitan area, it has a population of approximately 800,000 inhabitants, which makes it the second most populated city in the northwest of the country. Within Argentina, Salta is the city which has preserved its colonial architecture the best. Also known as Salta la Linda ("Salta the beautiful"), it has become

The fun-loving beach town of Jacó lights up as “beach party central” on Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast. Just an hour from the San Jose metropolitan area on the Route 27 and Costanera Sur highways, Jacó is one of the country’s most developed beach towns.

Jacó spreads out in front of a low green mountain range along an azure horseshoe bay and features hotels, funky restaurants, souvenir and surf shops, bars, discos, casinos, and a wide beach. Just before Jacó is Playa Herradura, home to the ren

por Cristóbal Ramirez

Estrés en la ciudad, disgustos, malos rollos. ¿Una vuelta por el Caribe? Volamos a Panamá, donde los días se estiran como chicles y parecen tener más de 24 horas. Ciudad de Panamá, su capital, se divide en tres partes. Zona 1: Panamá la Vieja, fundada en 1519 y destruida y saqueada en 1671 por el pirata Henry Morgan. Sólo queda la torre de la iglesia y algunos muros. Zona 2: Casco Viejo de Panamá, fundado a finales del siglo XVII. El aire salino da en la cara mientras se

by Jack F. Stanley

You know many of our Presidents drank. Some were real boozers. I figured I would write a very short bit on the ones who were moderate to heavy drinkers.
I will only list deceased former presidents. Also we had several Presidents who drank in their youth and gave it up. They will not be listed here.

Although the Presidents that drank on average have lived longer, although the odds are changing as time goes on and people are drinking less than they once did.

I will list the ag

Call it some kind of fierce, intuitive desire to protect the Olde Continente (e's added here for effecte), aka Die Mutterlande, but I've often experienced a fierce fight-or-flight response when faced with the old travel-writing truism that "Seattle is America's most European city."

Fight generally wins, and I go immediately to sarcastic, Socratic responses.

(Why, because of the medieval walls, pocked and battered by time and war, surrounding the Pike Place Market?)

They tagged Seattle with this ros

A little over 300 years after it was scuttled and left to lie at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the Quedagh Merchant was discovered in 2007 just off the coast of the Dominican Republic's Catalina Island, off the southeastern coast near La Romana. Four years later, this famous shipwreck was opened up to the diving public as an imaginative new attraction, the Museum of the Living Sea. The story of how it got there is a real life tale of Pirates of the Caribbean and one of which Captain Jack Sp

Radio Netherlands:  "There are more than 40 million widows in India - 10 percent of the country's female population. And for the majority of these women, life is what some have described as a "living sati", a reference to the now outlawed practice of widow burning."

Enter Nicki and Kria.

Blog Entry: Late January: BostontoBindis

"Thursday night Nicki and I sat in front of a group of about fifty widows and single women. They sang for us, covered our shoulders in white shawls, had us light a cand