Being a former sportswriter, I’m into top 10 lists. Top 10 restaurants. Top 10 wines. Top 10 travel tales from hell. With my annual trip to Skopelos, Greece, approaching, I thought I’d do my top 10 trips of my life. I’ve traveled for 45 years and been to 110 countries. This lists stretches from Ecuador to French Polynesia.
I’ve traveled to 107 countries but none in the last 14 months. I miss it more than anyone can know. Here is why.
Let’s face it, folks. It’s time to punt 2020. You’re not going anywhere. Americans have been banned everywhere from Poland to Pluto and even here in Italy our curve has spiked a bit after a flatlining summer brimming with optimism. It’s time to plan for 2021. Well, at least dream. That’s all many of us […]
Where I went yesterday there was no sun. There was no light. I walked, floated and swam through a half mile of pitch-black darkness while bending over to make sure my 6-foot-3 frame didn’t get gored by a million sharp stalactites. I did a tour of the Rio Secreto, one of the wildest river cruises in the world. The difference is you do it without a boat. It’s just you, a life vest, a wetsuit and a lighted helmet. That and a guide who stood between seven of us being hopelessly lost forever 60 feet underground.
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Tulum isn’t what I expected. A couple years ago I went to Ek-Balam, a former seat of the Mayan kingdom north of here. That featured everything from living quarters to warehouses to an acropolis. Even though Ek-Balam’s influence faded later during the empire, I got a feel for what the complexity of a major Mayan city. At Tulum, the first thing we saw as we pulled into a parking lot was a souvenir emporium the size of Wal-Mart. Is there a country that has more souvenirs than Mexico? This place makes Rome look like a fishing village in Greenland. Mexico seems to have as many different brands of tequila as dirty T-shirt messages.
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I’m a veteran of these things. I’ve spent a weekend in Steamboat Springs for $75. I had a condo in Cabo for $50 a night. I know how to say no, a word too many people can’t say to strangers. Timeshare salesmen aren’t strangers to me. After an hour or so, they become annoying, cloying vultures who would lie to their first-born child if it ravaged their savings account for one of their properties.
Some are worse than others. I remember one clown with Marriott who asked everyone in the room where’s the one place they’ve always wanted to spend a week. It don’t matter, he said. They had a property there. When they got to me, I said, “How are your resorts in North Korea?”
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The Grand Luxxe redefines opulence. The grand villa where I’m quartered has every luxury you can imagine without violating some federal obscenity laws. It’s 2,500 square feet with three huge bedrooms. Mine has a king-size bed covered with enough pillows to house flood evacuees. An above-ground eggshell-white Jacuzzi tub separates the room from a bathroom that has a shower with two different shower heads. Next to the bathtub is a little stand with a carefully rolled towel tied by a decorative bow. Small bottles of bath salt, bathing gel and bubble bath are placed equal distance around the towel. Who knew feng shui extended to toiletries?
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FRIDAY, MARCH 1 – CANCUN, MEXICO Am I home yet? It’ll be nice to get back to Colorado and be warm again. It’s rainy, gray and miserable in Cancun – in more ways than one. This place is mankind’s cesspool. It’s debauchery in its filthiest form. If planet Earth had a morality scale, you could […]
THURSDAY, FEB. 28 – HAVANA My taxi in Cienfuegos stopped to pick up a ride before we headed up to Havana, and I didn’t know if it was a home or a vandalized construction site. It was a small one-story house which didn’t appear to have a front door or any glass on the windows. […]
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 27 – CIENFUEGOS, CUBA Never judge a person by first impressions – unless, of course, it’s a hot Cuban babe whose first question is “Where are you staying?” – and don’t do it with cities, either. When we dropped off Marco here on the way to Trinidad, I thought Cienfuegos was a dusty […]
TUESDAY, FEB. 26 – TRINIDAD, CUBA I just sat down in a sweaty Viazul bus on my way to Cienfuegas. The Cubans call the bayside city “The Pearl of the South.” It could be the Hades of the South and I might go. I couldn’t handle one more visit to Trinidad’s Casa de la Musica […]
MONDAY, FEB. 25 – TRINIDAD, CUBA Here’s one aspect of Cuba that beats the hell out of all the other communist countries: It sure has better beaches than Eastern Europe. Ukraines go to the Black Sea – on July 15. That’s about the only time it’s warm enough. I made my first venture to a […]
