Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 12:02 am by ngkongs
On 9 August, the fourth Parati International Literary Festival kicks off in this immaculate colonial hamlet on the coast of Brazil. Parati, a mere dot on the map, is roughly equidistant between S 2006-08-05T00:00:01-00:00 24-Hour Room Service: Hotel Bel-Air Los Angeles, US Marilyn Monroe can be seen delicately balancing a couple of barbells in a photograph on the wall of the fitness room at the Hotel Bel-Air, reminding its exhausted occupants that this - suite 96 - was once the movie goddess s personal cottage. 2006-08-05T00:00:01-00:00 Time Travel: The Andes Connection Early in 1911, my grandfather Bethel Jacobs sailed from England to the northern Chilean town of Antofagasta.
He had been seeking work for ages as an engineer, and in the end was offered a job in one of the remotest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. He became an employee of the British-owned company responsible for the railway line linking the Atacama desert with the high Bolivian Andes. He saw major engineering challenges ahead of him, as well as an opportunity to establish a reputation comparable to that of his uncle Charles Jacobs, the man responsible for New York s Hudson River Tunnel.
2006-07-30T00:00:01-00:00 Pioneer Territory: Journeying to the Cariboo by train Ain t much happened to excite folks in Quesnel, British Columbia, since the end of the Gold Rush. True, you can shoot a little crap in the Billy Barker Casino Hotel, and Molly the barmaid in the Cariboo pub is a ringer for Loretta Lynn. But most times, the only thing to quicken the pulse in this remote town, famous only as the plywood capital of Canada, is the quality of the dimensional lumber .
2006-07-30T00:00:01-00:00 Belize: Welcome to the jungle For most people, the end of August spells the end of summer. For me it will spend the end of the waiting. Waiting to see if, from somewhere on my epidermis, an inch-long barbed larva belonging to the jungle-dwelling botfly will erupt.
2006-07-30T00:00:01-00:00 The Coldest Miles: Traversing North America on a sled We had no idea how cold it was. Our thermometer recorded temperatures to minus thirty but the mercury had slunk well below its bottom-most marker. It was as though the liquid was, like us, hunkering down to conserve every last droplet of heat.
2006-07-30T00:00:01-00:00 A Cuban tale My most vivid memory of life in Cuba is waking up very early in the morning to travel to the Teatro Garcia Lorca in Old Havana for my dance class. I had to be up at 5.30am to catch the bus and the journey took me along the Malecon s sea wall.
I remember watching the sun rise from the sea while the rest of Havana was still sleeping. That image, along with the smell of the sea, is one I ll never forget. 2006-07-23T00:00:01-00:00 24 Hour Room Service: Cal Neva Nevada, USA There s one name that dominates the Cal Neva Resort at Lake Tahoe: Frank Sinatra.
There are pictures of him everywhere, and his music is played in all the public rooms. Forty-two years ago, he owned this resort, which straddles the California-Nevada border (hence the name). There was a time when Dean Martin was one of Sinatra s partners, and he would joke that Frank had the casino and I had the men s room .
2006-07-22T00:00:01-00:00 Tornado Valley: A journey into the eye of the storm As we gazed up at the mushroom cloud coming directly towards us, it looked as though the world was about to end. A thick, black, swirling mass of noise and destruction was heading our way. The wind started to pick up, the air temperature dropped 10 degrees.
In about two minutes time, all hell would break loose. Right on the spot where I standing. 2006-07-16T00:00:01-00:00 The West Coast Trail: Step up to the challenge A once-in-a-lifetime experience , it is called - yet the West Coast Trail has the potential to be the last-in-a-lifetime.
The words of warning when we set out to hike this world-class trail on Canada s staggeringly beautiful Vancouver Island were not merely ringing in our ears; they were positively deafening. Our small party comprised my friend, Ernie, and our two 15-year-old sons. We faced 75km of demanding terrain that - if the official West Coast Trail booklet and compulsory induction briefing were to be believed - would test a fully equipped expeditionary force to the limit.
2006-07-15T00:00:01-00:00 Gabriel Garcia Marquez s enchanting home town Stepping into the shadow, there s initially more to smell than there is to see. Burnt almonds, pineapples and mangoes give a cloying edge to the humid air. Along the arcade shafts of light stream among the stalls.
Great glass jars catch the glare and reveal their homemade sweets. Pyramids of shaved coconut climb towards the heavy lids. And as the afternoon promenade begins, ageing voices call out their rhyming pitches: Dulce de coco para los locos!
, Dulce de pi a para las ni as! (Coconut sweets for the crazy, pineapple sweets for the girls). 2006-07-15T00:00:01-00:00 Join the cavern club in Mexico s Yucatan Peninsula The heat can become overwhelming, trudging through the jungle wearing a wetsuit, booties and an air-tank.
Following my Mexican dive guide Arturo down a gravel track, I recall a story I once heard in a bar. A man dressed in full scuba gear is found dead in the middle of a forestwith no ocean around for 50 miles. How did he get there?
The answer to that riddle lay in some absurd lateral thinking: a helicopter fighting a forest fire scooped up a tankful of seawater and inadvertently netted a diver in the process. It then dropped its load 50 miles inland, extinguishing both the fire and the life of the hapless diver in one fell swoop. 2006-07-08T00:00:01-00:00 School s out in Jamaica When Holly-May and Benjamin emerged from the warm waves, grinning from ear to ear and gingerly clutching a rather out-of-breath puffer fish, we knew our decison to come to Jamaica was right.
Screams of childish delight echoed across the beach, as other kids converged on our seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son to investigate the commotion. Like a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean, my swashbuckling children waded through the surf on to the beach, displaying their prized booty for all to see. All that was missing was a Jolly Roger flag.
2006-07-02T00:00:01-00:00 Look for the bear necessities in Quebec Our five-strong group had been sitting in silence, perched on a rocky ledge overlooking the clearing, for half an hour. The sun would soon be setting and the only sounds here, five miles into the forest, were those of distant birdsong and of a squirrel scampering between the firs and spruces. 2006-07-02T00:00:01-00:00 24 Hours In: Quebec City Wake up to the history 2006-07-02T00:00:01-00:00 American dream: Simon Calder follows the road to independence America s archetypal thoroughfare?
You can come up with plenty of contenders for Main Street, USA. Avenues of hopes and broken dreams such as Broadway in Manhattan or Hollywood in California; the mercantile mile of middle America known as State Street, Chicago; or Las Vegas Boulevard, a strip that mangles cultures into cartoons. But I suggest instead a road that leads you to the soul of the nation: Massachusetts Avenue.
Follow this unusually meandering highway for 20 miles, and you will understand much more about the world s only superpower - and experience a sequence of unexpected treats. 2006-07-01T00:00:01-00:00 The Complete Guide To Fly-Drive America WHY FLY AND DRIVE? 2006-06-24T00:00:01-00:00 Modernist homes in Palm Springs Iam having dinner at Cary Grant s house.
Actually it s the bungalow that Grant bought for when his friends came to stay - and now it has become the pretty dining room at Copley s restaurant in Palm Springs. But you can still imagine the scene: Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles and Rock Hudson all drinking martinis and taking a dip in the pool. What a swell party it must have been.
But that s Palm Springs for you - the little desert city 100 miles from LA where golden-age Hollywood came to play. 2006-06-18T00:00:01-00:00 24 Hours In Palm Springs Go poolside 2006-06-18T00:00:01-00:00 A tour along the Amazon When Fred Olsen Cruise Lines asked if I would like to be a guest entertainer on board a cruise up the Amazon, I jumped at the opportunity. This incredible river, the third longest in the world (though the Brazilians claim it is the longest), stems from the Andes in Peru, and flows across a large part of the South American continent from west to east.
As it reaches Brazil and is joined by other rivers, the Amazon becomes progressively wider; by the time it meets the Atlantic, it is more than 20 miles across. It travels through the world s largest rainforest, home to many indigenous tribes, some of whom made contact with civilisation as we know it only in the last century. 2006-06-17T00:00:01-00:00 British Columbia: Wheels and wilderness On a busy summer Saturday at Gatwick when everyone else seems to be going off on a beach holiday it feels quite intrepid to be heading for the mountains.
Why more people don t head for the hills in summer has long perplexed me, but it might have something to do with the perceived notion of what there is to do once you get there. The day before I left, a friend asked if I was going skiing. 2006-06-17T00:00:01-00:00 Perfection in Paraguay You can tell a lot about a country from its national heroes.
In Paraguay they revere Francisco Solano Lopez, whose statue still stands in the centre of the capital, Asuncion. Lopez was a tyrant, who ruled Paraguay in succession to his father from 1862 to 1870. He was also a paranoid megalomaniac, who murdered members of his own family on suspicion of plotting against him, waged a disastrous five-year war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in which three-quarters (yes, three-quarters) of his people died, and who kept as his mistress an Irish gold-digger called Eliza Lynch, notorious for parading on the battlefield in the latest imported Paris fashions while the flower of Paraguayan manhood starved beside her.
As a nation, it seems to be a good definition of the word forlorn . 2006-06-10T00:00:01-00:00 24-Hour Room Service: The W San Diego San Diego, once seen as a sleepy border town populated by retired admirals, has risen in the glamour stakes, not least with the arrival of the W Hotel. A barometer of urban cool, this hotel chain has made a pilgrimage from LA and San Francisco, to set up home in San Diego s newly gentrified Downtown area.
Clearly, the move wasn t a foolhardy one, as it will be followed next year by the Hard Rock Hotel, which will open nearby, complete with a branch of the swanky sushi restaurant, Nobu. 2006-06-10T00:00:01-00:00 Hollywood: Next The Sea Paul Simon was sitting in our restaurant eating and I had no idea - someone had to point him out to me. Then, another time I was out at the dock getting supplies from the boat and this lady bounces up to me and says, Hi, I m Sarah Jessica Parker.
We are so looking forward to coming for lunch with you! 2006-05-28T00:00:01-00:00 Gina Gallo s California: A vine romance The Californian countryside was a great place to grow up. I have vivid memories of nature being all around - vineyards, walnuts, apricots.
I remember eating the ripe tomatoes from our garden. All that food, brought to your dinner table from the surrounding land. And then there were the animals, too - horses, deer, elk and wild turkeys.
2006-05-28T00:00:01-00:00 Five Best: American Retro Motels Lazy Meadow New York State 2006-05-27T00:00:01-00:00 Rio bravo: Gilles Peterson s musical odyssey It s 10 years since my first trip to Brazil. Back then it was strictly turismo. Rio and then on to Salvador de Bahia, where I hung with the afro bloco, Olodum (a group founded in 1979 to highlight African heritage through music, dance and art).
This would be my second professional visit. As a DJ, broadcaster and producer, Brazilian music has always featured in my repertoire and even though my Portuguese is weak, the pull to this massive and distant land goes way beyond the ball and the beach. 2006-05-20T00:00:01-00:00 Cuba: Against the tide Divers are a pretty adventurous lot.
When it comes to seeking out ever more extraordinary underwater experiences they ll travel to places as far flung as Papua New Guinea, Djibouti and Newfoundland. But oddly enough, very few go to Cuba, which, given that it sits in the Caribbean Sea, within spitting distance of some of the most popular diving destinations in the world, seems strange. But then Americans dominate the diving market in the Caribbean, and they are banned by their own government from travelling to Cuba.
So the island, as far as many divers are concerned, is not really on the map. 2006-05-13T00:00:01-00:00 Bolivia by 4 4: Hey! Where did the road go?
Barely a decade ago, a revolution came to the Bolivian village of Terevinto. It was the day the isolated township got electricity. Then five years ago, telephone lines gave the 600 inhabitants of this clearing in the Bolivian plains (or chaco) an umbilical cord to the outside world.
That totally changed our lives, beams Elvio Rivero, one of the village elders. It meant that we could find out the football results from Bolivia and the rest of the world the same day! 2006-05-07T00:00:01-00:00 24 Hours In: Sucre Breakfast on the terrace 2006-05-07T00:00:01-00:00
New Orleans Times-Picayune - Use to make po-boys with horseradish mayo, barbecue sauce (below) and pickles.
Sauce: Combine Jack Miller s Bar B-Q sauce, Lea and Perrins, Tabasco, and Kraft Hickory Bar B-Q sauce. This recipe from Cox News Service has two secret ingredients
Source:
dc:title="Are you ready for some foodball?" Insert your 468x60 Google ad code here, Other sizes may work as well.
News RSS