Hipster Sao Paulo

Posted Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 5:12 PM by Lonely Planet

It's one of the largest cities on earth so it's not surprising that Brazil's Sao Paulo has a thriving arts and fashion scene.

For an insider's guide check out this recent Thorn Tree post with the latest on art and music venues as well as recommendations for little-known bars, restaurants and boutiques.

We also like Freakstyle - a street fashion blog run by a group of local photographers slash fashionistas - highlighting the looks of the city's hot and hip.

Labels: The Americas

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Cali Parks: Terminated

Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 7:08 PM by Lonely Planet

With California facing a $16 billion budget shortfall for 2008-2009, thanks in no small part to a cratering real estate market, Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar has mandated 10% across-the-board cuts to all state agencies.

Among the impacted? The California State Parks system, which will be forced to close or restict access to 48 state parks. Closures span the state and include such popular places as Tomales Bay State Park in the San Francisco Bay Area, Del Norte Redwoods State Park on the North Coast and Topanga State Park outside Los Angeles.

In total, 17% of California's state parks will be closed for the immediate future; 230 units will remain open. An additional 16 state beaches will see lifeguard reductions as well.

Hopefully, though, once Sacramento gets the budget in order, they'll be back.

-Jay Cooke, Commissioning Editor, USA East

Labels: The Americas

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Farewell, Fidel

After 49 years in power Fidel Castro has announced his resignation as the president of Cuba. His younger brother, Raul Castro, is expected to be named as his successor. The younger Castro has hinted at Cuba becoming a more democratic society, and while President Bush won't be lifting the trade embargo soon, there is the possibility that the next US president could ease the ban. Could this mean that Cubans will be allowed to travel freely? That Americans may soon be able to visit Cuba legally? Time will tell.

For images and video, see what the Washington Post and the New York Times are saying.
Jennye Garibaldi, Associate Commissioning Editor, USA

Labels: Caribbean, Castro, Cuba, Politics, The Americas, world news

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Rio Carnaval: The Last Hurrah

Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2008, 6:06 PM by Lonely Planet

I wake up at 5pm on Tuesday - Fat Tuesday, the Last Hurrah - having already missed Heaven on Earth. The bloco favored by Rio Bohemians, Heaven on Earth processes through the hilly cobblestone streets of Santa Teresa, above Rio's downtown. I kick myself for sleeping through it.

By the time coffee and aspirin are doing their work, it's dark again, and a chill rain has begun to fall. Carnival is over, I think, at least for me, though I can hear its still-general occurrence - yips and cheers, bursts of firecrackers, the boom of a dozen street parties warring over Copacabana's rooftops.

I descend to the streets, not to join in but simply to procure more fluids. Yet as soon as I step outside, the party is once again bearing down on me. This time it's the bloco of Leme, my own neighborhood. It's named, appropriately enough, Dry Mouth. The fifty-strong drum section instantly raises the flesh on my arms. It's followed by a truck bearing singers, banjo players, and speakers of unpardonable size.

Then comes the hundreds-strong mass of revelers. They represent every social and racial hue of our little neighborhood, from its million-dollar oceanfront condos to its discreet, hillside slum. A pair of barefoot twins, not yet six, samba furiously in tiny, glittering bikinis. Old ladies watch from the safety of their windows, those that still can throwing their arms up in delight.

Heaven, it seems, isn't limited to Bohemian heights. I get a taste right here at my doorstep. As I laugh at the irony, a middle-aged woman dances by in a T-shirt that reads, "Samba e Amor." Samba is love. She's happy. Really, there's no need to further complicate matters.

- Robert Landon is co-author of Lonely Planet's Brazil guide.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Rio Carnaval: Super Samba

Posted Tuesday, February 05, 2008, 1:57 PM by Lonely Planet

It's 3am. Our taxi has run up against a strange convoy. The great floats are in their migration from the Cidade do Samba, the vast warehouses where they're constructed, to the Sambodromo, the parade grounds where they will finally have their hour. Black plastic guards their multi-storey secrets, and it takes dozens of men to push them at a speed that's the frustration of our driver. Under the pelting rain, the scene has the solemnity of a funeral procession.



My friend Leland isn't sure he wants to go to the Sambodromo. He hesitates at the price - US$170 for bleacher seats. Then there's his aversion both to large crowds and the percussive cheer of the samba-enredo - the samba particular to Rio's Carnaval. I felt all these things too, before I finally went myself. I promise it'll all make sense once he hears the hundreds-strong drum blocks, sees the mad floats without their shrouds.



The next night, his doubts are completely dispelled. He's gawking at the river of color that floods the Sambodromo's narrow "avenida," the sheer audacity of it all. But what's bursting his heart, he tells me, is the fact a people can come together not to wage war or worship a favored god, but in the cultivation of a collective "alegria". English doesn't have its equivalent, though it might be loosely translated as collective happiness, even jubilation. It must be consciously cultivated and generously shared. It's the fruit of that funeral march we'd seen the night before - and the aim of Carnaval.


- Robert Landon is co-author of Lonely Planet's Brazil guide.

Labels: "Festivals and events", The Americas

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Rio Carnaval: Banda from the balcony

Posted Monday, February 04, 2008, 2:49 PM by Lonely Planet

Our invitation comes through an emissary, a handsome medical student named Vinicius. We're to be at Rogerio's apartment at four in the afternoon, in time for a glass of cold prosecco before the confusao of Banda de Ipanema, with its tens of thousands of fans, passes along the legendary beachfront.

Sometime after five, the Banda de Ipanema comes in sight, and soon the drums and brass nearly manage to drown out the blasting of Rogerio's Beyonce DVD. Founded as a protest against the military dictatorship of the 1960s, the banda has become the rallying ground for Rio's gay carnaval-goers.



Last year I marched with the band, looking up with envy at those who waved from luxurious apartments as I fought back both claustrophobia and heat stroke. Within minutes, my wallet was picked, and when looked down, still hoping I'd perhaps just dropped it, I saw dozens of other wallets like so many discarded pelts littering the ground. Depressed, I told my dear companion Ricky I was calling it a day. But sulking during Carnaval is simply not done. In the end, we got home at 8am with burns from the early-rising sun.

After the banda has passed, I ask my host for a pen to note some of the things I've seen, but he tells me he's at a party and can't be bothered. This seals it. Next year, if I'm lucky enough to be in Rio on the Saturday of Carnaval, I'll be there in the middle of confusao rather than looking down on it.

- Robert Landon is co-author of Lonely Planet's Brazil guide.

Labels: "Festivals and events", The Americas

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Carnaval Step One: Dancing til Dawn

Posted Sunday, February 03, 2008, 3:11 PM by Lonely Planet

Shoppers enter the local supermarket barefoot. Water from the tap bears a jungle tang. After sunset, air from the sea settles into something milder than a breeze. Right now it's midnight and Rio de Janeiro has gone quiet, trying to get its last, solid night of shuteye before the epic party begins.

I hope to join the others soon in sleep, but after five nights of "preparing" for Carnaval - i.e drinking, dancing, talking until four, five, seven in the morning - my body's clock is out of joint.

On Saturday, neighbors in the next apartment took me to an escola de samba called Salgueiro. These escolas aren't, as the name implies, "schools" where gringos learn to samba, but rather a peculiar combination of dance hall, practice grounds, social club and benevolent society. Their highest function, though, is to mount their portion of the parade in the city's Sambodromo on Sunday and Monday of Carnaval.

Not everyone in Brazil likes samba, including my neighbor Anadeia. But neither does she want to miss the party. So she packs her MP3 player, hoping to drown out both the remarkable fifty-member-strong bateria (percussion section) as well as the half-dozen singers who, as a group, possess more enthusiasm than excellence, and who hold the microphone piercingly close to their mouths.

Outside Salgueiro, the streets are crowded with those who, tonight at least, cannot afford the entrance price (about US$17). Still they've come to drink beer, eat sausages from improvised grill, and catch the particular high of those lucky enough to be coming and going through the turnstiles.

Inside, Salgueiro's hall is immense. Built in a kind of Portuguese version of Victorian plain style, it's a single space ringed by arcaded boxes for the escola's complex hierarchy - and their wealthy patrons.

As soon as we enter, it's clear Anadeia's headphones are not up to their task. The music, relentlessly jubilant and inexorably amplified, colonizes the whole body. Earphones come off and soon our little posse merges with the hundreds, the thousands, on the vast dance floor.

- Robert Landon is co-author of Lonely Planet's Brazil guide.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Rockin the US campaign trail

Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 4:24 PM by Lonely Planet

Covering the 2007 national elections in Australia as an American journalist I found the affair to be generally civilised, consisting of measured debate, deep, dry policy scrutiny and only a vague sense of political backbiting.

I certainly never wrote "Band kicks ass" in my reporter's notepad.

But that's the sort of thing you scribble when watching the American elections live, and guess what travellers? You too can witness our ridiculous leader-of-the-free-world selecting system at this very moment! C'mon; the dollar is weak and you only get one presidential election every four years.

Here's what a South Carolina rally for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was like. The opening act was rock stars Lucas War Hero - yeah, I'd never heard of them either, but isn't that a great band name? Makes you want to scream LUCAS WAR HERO! and throw a mini-fridge out of a hotel window - on stage with Ric freaking Flair, 16-time professional wrestling world champion. Chuck Norris (uh, yeah, Chuck Norris) was supposed to be there, but he got held up. Anyways, the crowd heart-ed Huckabee and the whole show, and I'm not ashamed to admit I did too.

This is why American elections are so fun. Other systems are analytical, less-money obsessed and short on spectacle, and they're bloody boring. As a traveller and journalist I've yet to see other Western elections illicit the full-throated passion I witnessed in South Carolina. Sure, we elect morons. But the Australian election system is the most dignified one I've yet seen, and voters there kept John Howard in office for 11 years. If it's gotta be a moron, at least make it a colorful one. Come see us pick our next moron while you can.

- Adam Karlin

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas, Travelsnitch

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Still burning up the dance floor

Posted Thursday, December 06, 2007, 6:43 PM by Lonely Planet

A warehouse-come-trapeze centre in south London has been filled with geodesic domes and psychedelic adornments in honour of America's Burning Man festival; the bar, decorated with fluorescent papier-mâché skulls.

Tonight's 'decompression party' is an attempt to deal with the deflating experience of returning to consensus reality after Burning Man, the pagan rave in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

In San Francisco, home of the festival's founder and the city with the highest population of 'burners', they even organise a decompression street fair. As well as offering a chance to don cosmic costumes and catch up with friends from the playa (the prehistoric lake bed where the festival takes place), such events are a reminder of Burning Man's idealistic social mission.

Its aim is to positively affect the way people live all year round and, in that spirit, the group Burners without Borders has been providing help to earthquake-struck Peru. The group has raised almost US$3000 and sent a disaster relief carpenter to lead construction projects in Pisco.

Community spirit is obvious in the organisation of tonight's party. Requests for assistance fill online forums - from a loan of a kipper tie to crash space for burners coming from other parts of Europe. People spend days turning the industrial unit into an ultraviolet wonderland, and stay to clear the floor of glowsticks at the end of the all-nighter.

The accents heard above the pounding music reflect the worldwide community of burners. I speak to a Parisian Euroburner, one of about 30 French folk at the knees-up, and to the landlord of the playa's very own English pub. He's already planning for next year's Burning Man, due to take place around Labor Day (September 1). No wonder - it requires some serious logistics to turn a patch of desert into an event with the global, year-round reverberations on display tonight.

- James Bainbridge went to Burning Man researching for A Year of Festivals, out next year; you can read his blog from the festival here.

Labels: Burning Man, Europe, Festivals and events, The Americas

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From one turkey to another

Posted Thursday, November 22, 2007, 8:51 PM by Lonely Planet

In the tradition of Thanksgiving, George W. Bush has bestowed a presidential pardon on one lucky turkey, allowing it to live out the remainder of its days pecking around Magic Kingdom Park at Disney World.

It's predicted around 45 million turkeys will be eaten this Thanksgiving, so May, the "chosen one" should be very thankful indeed.



Here's hoping everyone in the USA has a great long weekend and if the thought of family and parade-day floats freaks you out - check out our survival guide here.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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One way to have the time of your life

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 8:50 PM by Lonely Planet

You've watched the film about a million times, bought the special edition DVD, danced for hours to the soundtrack, seen the musical and regularly drop "I carried a watermelon" into everyday conversation.

Well why stop there? If you really want to celebrate Dirty Dancing's 20th anniversary in style make like Baby Houseman and take a trip to the real life Kellerman's at Mountain Lake Hotel in Virginia, USA. The resort - where everything from the dance classes to the cabin scenes were filmed (head to North Carolina for the famous lake lift) - is hosting a series of Dirty Dancing weekends. This is your chance to shake your maracas like poor old dance instructor Penny and learn the salsa, tango and merengue. Unfortunately Patrick Swayze will not be in attendance. Tour the grounds and try to beat other Dirty Dancing fanatics in a trivia competition and find out why, even twenty years later, no one is putting Baby in the corner.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas, Travelsnitch

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Fires in Southern California

Posted Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 7:09 PM by Lonely Planet

As the rest of the US starts the slow descent into winter, California's hot as ever. Here they literally have a "fall", and although pretty - dried leaves make for highly flammable debris. Unseasonably hot winds are fanning well-fuelled fires across the region. The five day forecast shows no rain, just day-after-day of 90 degree Fahrenheit weather (about 32 degrees Celsius).

The fires are disrupting life and livelihoods in the state from Santa Barbara, south to the Mexican border. Road closures and evacuations mean travel to and within the region has been affected. Many tourist attractions are shut, and flights delayed.

Travellers should check the latest news reports and see what's being discussed on the Thorn Tree.

Labels: Breaking travel news, The Americas

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Where are the Rosa Luxemburg t-shirts?

Posted Monday, October 08, 2007, 7:27 PM by Lonely Planet

Here's a way you can mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara: for the next week, every time you see someone wearing one of those iconic Che t-shirts during your travels, ask them:

- so who is that bloke, anyway?

- why do you like him so much you want him on your t-shirt?

- do you think violence is a valid means of overthrowing a repressive dictatorship? Alternatively, is murder a necessary but deplorable means to a desirable end, but not something we should ennoble by making heroes of its protagonists? Is it OK to kill if it's for something you believe in and, if so, would you wear Senior General Than Shwe on a t-shirt if he took a nicer photo?

- would you consider yourself a relativist or an absolutist, and, more specifically, do you think it was OK that Che hated gays because, given the time and place, hating gays was normal behaviour?

- who is better looking: Che Guevara or Gael Garcia Bernal?



"We will continue to fight you as long as we have weapons in our hands."
- Osama bin Laden

"Any nation that decides the only way to achieve peace is through peaceful means is a nation that will soon be a piece of another nation."
- Richard Nixon

"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting."
- Che Guevara


- Jane Rawson

Labels: Politics, The Americas, Travelsnitch

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Atlantic Antic Festival this weekend

Posted Thursday, September 27, 2007, 6:11 PM by Lonely Planet

New York's best parties have never been in nightclubs or penthouse apartments - you find them on the streets and the best-kept secret (at least to the outside world, and possibly Manhattan) is Brooklyn's Atlantic Antic, held 10am to 6pm this Sunday.

Now in its 33rd incarnation, the annual Antic is a ten-block walk along Atlantic Ave (between Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights) past a catch-all of Brooklyn's diverse self: R&B bands in pastel suits, pulled-pork sandwiches, beefy grandmother belly dancers, free hapkido lessons, and indie bands in last-night's clothes.



If you're in New York this Sunday, go. Start from the Atlantic Ave subway stop (reached by B, D, M, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5 lines) and walk west along the avenue to Brooklyn Heights. Here's a few stopping points heading west, with all sorts of food stops along the way:

* Near the Atlantic Ave stop, Gumbo (493 Atlantic Ave), between 3rd Avenue and Nevins, stages Jamaican dub poet jaBEZ (at 2pm) and Bonga and Voodou Drums of Haiti (at 3pm). Nearby Hank's Saloon (46 3rd Ave) goes for rockabilly.

* Southern rock and white-goatee blues gets on at Downtown Atlantic (364 Atlantic Ave), between Bond and Hoyt Sts.

* Jolie (320 Atlantic Ave), between Hoyt and Smith Sts, goes for a bit more self-conscious folk.

* At the Antic's mid-way point, at Boerum Pl, you can climb aboard 1917 public buses as part of the nearby New York Transit Museum's annual display.

* A couple blocks west, between Court and Clinton Sts, is belly-dancer central, where Middle Eastern and Greek music is played on a giant stage all day.

* Walk on, for the Antic's trashy west end. The block between Hicks and Henry St gets trashy: Last Exit (136 Atlantic Ave) is all about go-go dancing and shameless burlesque, including the xylophone-punk of Anna Copa Cabana.

* And the nearby stage outside Magnetic Fields (97 Atlantic Ave) is all crunchy garage rock and swinging-London wannabes; Mary Weiss from the '60s girl-band Shangri-Las - and sounding like her ol' Ramones-inspiring self on her new album - plays at 4.30pm.

- Robert Reid

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Digging out after Dean

Posted Thursday, September 13, 2007, 11:23 PM by Lonely Planet

Thank God, thank the Virgin of Guadalupe, thank whomever you wish, nobody died at the hands of Hurricane Dean... Now the hard part: rebuilding a town ripped to shreds.



At the height of the storm, much of Mahahual, a tourist town about 300 km south of Cancún, Mexico was underwater. The other coastal areas, including the tourist town of Xcalak, are fine. There's a bit of wind scour, but they are up and running and the beaches and reefs are still in good shape throughout the Costa Maya.

Two inland ruins, Dzibanché and Río Bec, are temporarily closed. They should be opening up in the next week or so, according to authorities.

The first person I came across in Mahahual (weeks after the storm) was Aura. She was selling Corona t-shirts near the beach. She used to have a great spot, just a block or two from the port that brought in up to three cruise ships a day. But now that port is underwater, and most people think it will be at least a year, maybe two, before it gets rebuilt. In short, the people of Mahahual, who depended on tourist traffic to stay alive, are royally screwed.

But Aura has set up her little t-shirt stand again, looking expectantly at the horizon for any ghost ships that might roll in and businesses remain optimistic, many expecting to reopen within a week or two.

So now could be a good time to travel to Mahahual, buy a t-shirt, some conch stew, and look out over that great blue sea.

Hurricane relief can be sent through www.playa.info. The Red Cross is not operating in Mahahual.

- Greg Benchwick

Labels: Breaking travel news, The Americas, Volunteer

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US Passports - Application Pending...

Posted Wednesday, September 12, 2007, 6:58 PM by Lonely Planet

Since January this year, an unprecedented number of Americans have waited unprecedented periods for their little blue books. The result of the niftily named "Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative", new requirements for travel to neighbouring Mexico, Canada and Caribbean countries saw a pre-emptive rush on passports and the US government's security obsession, turn into an administrative nightmare.

In part, it is a myth that Americans don't travel - traditionally, passport numbers have not necessarily accounted for those who cross borders to the country's North and South. So where as it is true that until two years ago less than a quarter of the population were in possession of a passport, many more may have travelled 'internationally' on other ID documents.

Now as numbers near the 30 percent mark, it is apparent that although still low in comparison to other Western countries, this amounts to approximately 12 million new passports in 2006, 16 million in 2007 and a projected 22-25 million in 2008.

Where as we welcome the positive potential for Americans to travel further a field, gain increased cultural awareness and facilitate the peace process, US Congress spin chooses to focus on the new capacity to prevent terrorists and reduce the use of fraudulent documents.

We encourage all Americans to consider the impact of their travelling, beyond the very attractive prospect of drinking Sol at only $1US dollar a bottle! Certainly there is the grass-roots opportunity to improve foreign relations, but also the imperative that if you tread widely, to attempt to tread lightly. But this of course goes for all travellers.


September is National Passport Month in the US. For more information see: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/passport.

For US citizens who require more information on applying for a passport visit: http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html.

Labels: Passport, The Americas

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Sake-philes Unite!

Posted Tuesday, September 11, 2007, 4:06 PM by Lonely Planet

When I moved to California, I didn't know my junmai from my daiginjo. To me, sake was simply a warm contrast to my cold sushi, served in sweet little cups. Today, while not as educated about Japan's 1400 breweries or the world's countless sakes as I'd like to be, I love all things sake. And until about a year ago, I was ignorantly happy with my delectably clean and dry Shiratake Junmai Ginjo, or some sweet, milky Nigori.

But then, last year the manager of my favorite Japanese restaurant asked if I was going to the upcoming Joy of Sake sake-tasting event. 'Not to be missed,' she insisted. Oh, how right Gina-san was. The next night, I walked into the Moscone Center, was given a glass and a booklet of the sakes available for tasting, and was changed forever. Tables lined with bottle after bottle of sake - hundreds of them, each with a small dropper in a full sake cup for gathering a few precious drops into one's tasting glass.

It was tremendous. I approached timidly. But once I learned that many of the sakes were not available in the USA, I knew what I had to do. I opened the brochure, tasted and took copious notes until I was thoroughly enlightened, and called a cab.

This month the Joy of Sake event is on again. The largest sake-tasting event held outside of Japan provides a rare opportunity to sample award-winning sakes in peak condition. The three-city tour kicked off in Honolulu in August, and is coming to San Francisco and New York for only one night each. Over 300 sakes will be available for sampling (again, including over 100 not available in the United States), and some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area will be serving up sake appetizers to both complement the sake and to help imbibers maintain.

So if you find yourself in San Francisco or New York and the time is right, experience the Joy of Sake. To quote Gina-san, it is not to be missed.

The Joy of Sake

San Francisco: 13 September 2007, Hilton San Francisco
New York City: 27 September 2007, The Puck Building
Tickets are $70-90. To order, visit the website or call 888-739-1007.


- Emily K Wolman

Labels: Asia and Pacific, Culinary culture, The Americas

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Spark it up

Posted Thursday, September 06, 2007, 12:03 AM by Lonely Planet

The Burning Man festival climaxes with the torching of the neon-covered Man-sculpture, which has been hastily rebuilt after an over-enthusiastic pyromaniac started the ceremony early. It's a fittingly primal end to eight days of crazily decorated, trance-blaring 'art cars' zipping around Black Rock Desert. In a tribal fashion, fire-twirlers and bongo drummers circle the Man, watched by a sea of head torches, glowsticks and light sabres.



The incineration takes me by surprise: a sudden explosion engulfs the sculpture and sends a wave of heat across the crowd. After the pyre has crashed to the ground, everyone surges towards the embers with the air of New Years Eve revellers. A guy in a red mask and black cape catches my eye: 'Happy burn, man.'



The festival has been an emotional experience. It's a classic case of 'only in America', not just because it's the heart and soul of the country's counterculture but also for its epic scale. Black Rock City, as the population on the playa is known, is Nevada's fifth largest city and, as a festival radio DJ opines, 'the best city in the goddamn world'.

Money is not used outside Center Camp Café. Burners contribute to the whole by running free bars and barbecues, building sculptures, decorating the port-a-loos, performing random acts of kindness, or just donning a costume and bringing smiles to the faces on the playa. The festival's mantra is 'participate'.



Leaving the smouldering Man, the crowd drifts to watch the next fiery display. It's rumoured that a gang of Texan 'death punks' will be using a mixture of liquid propane and jet fluid to shoot a flame 1000 feet upwards. As I wait for the spectacle, I experience the same mixture of excitement and trepidation I felt on the way to this intense gathering. Then the mushroom cloud fills the night sky, illuminating the sunburnt faces of 47,000 burners.



James Bainbridge was at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; this is the last in his series of blogs from the event. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Have you been at Burning Man this year or in the past? Share your Burning Man experiences here.

Labels: Burning Man, Festivals and events, Nevada, The Americas

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Burning Man heats up

Posted Tuesday, September 04, 2007, 3:48 PM by Lonely Planet

Last night, between visits to the festival's English, Irish and German pubs, I checked out some of the more interactive entertainment on offer. The best, apart from the roller disco of course, was a game called Dance Dance Immolation.



Contestants in heat-resistant suits had to dance to bad '80s music; if they stopped or stepped out of tune, they were strafed with a jet of fire.

It was just another night on the playa, the salt pan in Nevada's Black Rock Desert that, for eight days a year, is overrun with wild-eyed 'burners' from as far afield as Australia. Artist Larry Harvey and friends started the happening in 1986 and shifted it to the outback in 1990, when San Francisco police moved them on from Baker Beach. At a press conference this week, Harvey said that Burning Man, in its idealistic mission to influence the way people live in the world beyond the festival, is succeeding where the '60s failed.



Certainly, the event is much more than an annual holiday for devotees such as the 'Euroburners' running the English bar. For 51 weeks of the year, they keep the contents of their elaborate camp in a storage unit in nearby Reno.



Another example of the serious sense of purpose underlying the event is its various themes. This year, as part of the green theme, there are schemes in place such as bio-diesel generators and the world's largest per capita communal bikes project. The theme will live on after the event when Burning Man gives the largest ever solar power donation to two local towns. In return, the state government will rename nearby Rte 447 as the Green Highway.

Like the '60s, Burning Man may not change the world, but it certainly has a profound effect on everyone who experiences it... even if their moonwalking skills aren't up to Dance Dance Immolation.

James Bainbridge is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; check out the last in his series of blogs from the festival here soon. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Labels: Burning Man, Nevada, The Americas

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On the road all over again

Posted Monday, September 03, 2007, 7:33 PM by Lonely Planet

It is a sacred text to some, an old scroll that was made into a book that today is read all over the globe, the inspiration for countless pilgrimages, for quests for meaning, a way of life.

Fifty years ago, on 5 September 1957, On The Road was published, the book that mapped Jack Kerouac's journey down a stream of consciousness and through the US of the 1950s. A book fathered by Dada and the surrealists that became one of the midwives to the counter-culture children of the following decades. An anniversary edition of the book is being published and the original 120-foot typewriter roll - according to legend belted out in one long coffee-and-Benzedrine fuelled burst of hypergraphia - has itself gone on the road visiting libraries and museums across the states.

But does the Kerouacian desire to 'burn, burn, burn' still resonate today or is its message of rebellion against stifling conformity a relic of a time when people paid a higher price for kicking against the pricks of suburban rectitude?

Does On The Road's celebration of the spontaneous and the improvised get lost in the advertiser's command to 'just do it'?

As travellers what do you think?

- Dan Caleo

Labels: The Americas

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Whiteout in Black Rock City

Posted Sunday, September 02, 2007, 4:37 PM by Lonely Planet

We're waiting to take an art tour of the Burning Man collective when the whiteout hits. The tour goes ahead anyway; the idea of not being able to see any of the art appeals to the sense of illogic that governs Black Rock City. As we strike out onto the playa, our dragon-bus' horns bob in the 50-mile-an-hour winds that fill the air with dust.



Tank Girls, touregs and Mad Max villains emerge from the haze, protected with bandannas, goggles and gas marks. We look down from the top deck of the flapping float at our samurai escorts who jog alongside the dragon.



The first stop is a sculpture made of two trucks. I walk away from the bus and, within 50 metres, I am alone in the playa dust. It's just me, a sea of colourful flags and a metal pole bristling with bike reflectors. The only sound I can hear, other than the whistling wind, is a soundsystem playing Johnny Cash's slow-motion cover of Nine Inch Nails' song about an 'empire of dirt'.



The festival seems far away... until a cyclist clad only in a Viking helmet wavers past. Nudism is one of the many forms of uninhibited self-expression at this tribal gathering for America's subculture.

Back on the dragon, the next strange shape that appears in the blizzard is the Man himself. He lacks a head as he's being rebuilt following an arson attack. Our last stop is the Seattle glassblowers collective, who will be producing art all night using a kiln adorned with glassy off-cuts.

Nearby, a gang of burners wearing pink jump suits and fuzzy rabbit ears parades by. Following in their paw prints is the syringe-toting 'inoculation squad', intent on eradicating those pesky bunnies. It'll take more than a windstorm to stop the surreality on the playa.


James Bainbridge is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; check out the next in his series of blogs from the festival here soon. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Labels: Burning Man, Nevada, The Americas

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Burning Man - the second coming

Posted Thursday, August 30, 2007, 11:09 PM by Lonely Planet

We're only halfway through the festival and (even by Burning Man standards) two very unusual things have happened.

There's a full lunar eclipse - which pushes Black Rock City to even greater gimp-mask-and-Dayglo-wearing extremes and someone prematurely sets the Burning Man on fire!



I hear the news from a naked, glitter-painted lady drifting past my tent. A press release at Media Mecca, a hub for dusty journalists in need of a Hunter S Thompson cocktail, reveals that the arsonist is in custody and the Man will be rebuilt.

As the singed skeleton of the sculpture is removed, the festival neon artist speeds to Reno and the outside world to buy materials.



I checked out the Man a few hours before the premature burning. There was a quasi-religious atmosphere there, with burners quietly circling and touching the wooden trunks at its base.

This arson attack is obviously big news for the community - the Black Rock Beacon even manages a special 'the Man's bacon gets cooked' issue. However, life on the playa continues as abnormal, with plenty of other idols for the neon-lit floats to buzz between...




James is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; this is the third post in a series. Check out the previous posts here.

You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Labels: Breaking travel news, Burning Man, Nevada, The Americas

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Burning Man Boot Camp

Hearing we were first-time burners, the guys at the gate made us do press-ups and roll through the dust, like military recruits. Then, we had to bang a gong and yell, 'I am no longer a virgin!'



When the initiation was over, I noticed two Nevada state troopers looking darkly on from their truck. One thing that phases outsiders about Burning Man is just how seriously the folks at this desert festival take their theatrical, carnivalistic freakery.

As well as remembering survivalist supplies like vinegar, (which stops your feet drying and cracking on the salt pan) burners arrive laden with material for performances and installations.

The first person we met was a character called Dead Letter Y, a guy from Oregon in a pink furry hat. He handed us some spray-painted envelopes and explained Pirate Mail. If you want to contact someone here, pop a note into an envelope, write a description of them - anything but their address - and hand it to another burner. If it doesn't reach them by the end of the festival, there's always next year.



In return, my friend took a Polaroid shot of Dead Letter and gave him the photo. Our first Burning Man transaction was complete.

One of my favourite performances on the playa, where the cracked terrain is dotted with towering sculptures and naked cyclists, was the Boardroom Take-over Posse. With completely straight faces, they sat in the 100-degree-farenheit heat talking into chunky phones and punching fat calculators in their suits and slick hair. The illusion of being on Wall Street was shattered only by a bottle of whisky sitting on the table and the laughter of people taking rides in a giant metal dragonfly nearby...


James Bainbridge is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; check out the next in his series of blogs from the festival here soon. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Labels: Burning Man, Nevada, The Americas

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On fire in Nevada

Posted Monday, August 27, 2007, 5:00 PM by Lonely Planet

We've just left Reno for the final leg of our drive to the Burning Man Festival. Our 'last supper' was Boomerang Shrimp at the Outback Steakhouse. The cheap flicker of Terrible's Railway Casino and its neon neighbours is behind us, and the Great Black Rock desert, in front.



From now on, basic survival is the mission as for the next seven days, 45,000 hardy party animals will converge on the playa, a salt pan so broad it supposedly shows the curve of the earth's surface.



All day on Hwy 80 from San Francisco we scanned for fellow 'burners'. As well as the distinctive Burning Man symbol and a giant, fluffy purple dinosaur protruding from one trailer, bikes are a sure give-away. The festival is 5km across, arranged in a semi-circle with the iconic Man towering at its centre.



Two $50 cycles jostle for space in our PT Cruiser along with 30 gallons of water, plastic goggles, paper sanding masks, a space suit, assorted wigs, dayglo necklaces, water pistols and prism viewers. The plastic trinkets will be as vital as our gazebo in a temporary city where only coffee and ice are for sale and everything else must be exchanged.

As soon as we leave Hwy 80, we join a 100km queue for the festival. A Burning Man virgin, my excitement and nervousness are both mounting. After an hour, the playa appears in the distance, the green neon Man just discernible through a windstorm whipping up thick clouds of dust...


James is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; check out the next in his series of blogs from the festival here soon. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.

Labels: Burning Man, Festivals and events, Nevada, The Americas

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Peru Earthquake Update

Posted Sunday, August 19, 2007, 11:56 PM by Lonely Planet

For the most up to date information on the earthquake in Peru head to the Thorn Tree or visit Andean Travel Web.

Mike Weston, editor of Andean Travel Web reports:

"Peru was struck by an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale on the evening of 15 August 2007. The places most affected by the earthquake are Ica, Pisco, Paracas, and Chincha which lie more than 150km to the south east of Lima. More than 500 people have been reported dead and one thousand five hundred injured in the province of Ica. No tourists have been reported dead or injured. A state of emergency has been declared in this area.

Although buildings shook violently in Lima there was very little damage. A minor tremor was felt in Cusco but there was no damage to buildings or infrastructure and all services to Machu Picchu are running as normal. Nasca, although fairly close to Ica, sustained very little damage and flights over the Nasca Lines have now restarted. Flights between all major cities are running as scheduled. The section of the Pan American Highway connecting Nasca to Lima has now reopened to very limited traffic (emergency and aid vehicles) although it is highly recommended that visitors avoid taking buses along this route and fly between Arequipa and Lima or between Cusco and Lima.

Visitors should cancel any immediate plans to visit Ica, Paracas and the Ballestas islands. Phone lines are still very busy throughout Peru so patience is required when calling Peru."

Labels: Breaking travel news, The Americas

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Earthquake in Peru

Posted Thursday, August 16, 2007, 5:42 PM by Lonely Planet

Pisco, south of Peru's capital, Lima, is best known to travellers as a base from which to visit the Islas Ballestas, which lie off the coast. But this week an earthquake has rocked the port town and surrounds leaving hundreds dead. With aftershocks still registering yesterday news of damage came from Ica, Chincha and even Lima.

Travellers in the area should check local media reports and see what the community has to say on the Thorn Tree.

Labels: Earthquake, Peru, The Americas

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It's getting hot in here

Posted Monday, August 06, 2007, 9:38 PM by Lonely Planet

Baywatch it isn't, but when the Lonely Planet Oakland crew are after some Californian sea-side action they head to Santa Cruz with its 26 miles of coastline and a few David Hasselhoff-worthy beaches, craggy coves, an off-leash dog beach, some primo surf spots and big sandy stretches where your kids will have a blast.

Every beach has its own personality, but here are some of our favourites:

Main Beach - This is the scene, with a huge stretch of sand, shops, volleyball and swarms of people. Parking is metered and tough, but you'll find a spot on Front St at Pacific Ave. Even better, cross the river, park up on East Cliff Drive (ECD) and walk across the Lost Boys trestle to the beach and Boardwalk.

Cowell Beach - Best for beginner surfers, just west of the wharf.

Its Beach (West Cliff Drive) - The only official off-leash beach for dogs (before 10am and after 4pm, but everyone cheats) is just west of the lighthouse. The field across the street is another good romping ground (same hours).

Natural Bridges (WCD) - A family favorite with lots of sand, tidepools and Monarch butterflies (in winter). Day use is $6, free if you park on the street.

Twin Lakes (ECD) - Big beach with a lagoon, good for kids.

26th Ave/Moran Lake County Park (ECD) - A surfer fave (good beach break) and good all-around spot with a metered parking lot and bathroom.

Capitola - To the east, this town has a warm beach, with gentle waves for the kiddies and easy access to shops, restaurants and bathrooms. Parking can be a nightmare, but there's a free summer shuttle from a well-signed parking lot off Bay Ave.

New Brighton - Farther east, this long, quiet stretch of sand is ace for running and camping.

- Suki Gear

Labels: The Americas

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When I was on a chicken bus in...

Posted Sunday, July 15, 2007, 5:18 PM by Lonely Planet

Labels: The Americas

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Blame Canada

Posted Monday, July 02, 2007, 5:21 PM by Lonely Planet

The 36-seat plane is tiny, but so is the archipelago we're flying to on this morning flight from Montreal. Quebec's Iles de la Madeleine consist of a dozen islands with a population of just over 12,000. However, they have plentiful supplies of the important things in life: 350km of beach and a selection of boites a chansons offering live music most nights during the summer.

The plane's passengers, mostly French-speaking Quebecois tourists, emit a murmur of appreciation as we circle above a cresecent-shaped beach. It's like a rollercoaster ride. I'm wondering if there will be any Canada Day festivities here. The nationwide celebration of all things Canuck sees red-and-white-painted crowds fill the streets from Ottawa to Vancouver. However, not only are the islands part of a province with separatist leanings, but they're separated from the mainland by 215km of water.

Could this be a muted celebration?

As it turns out, there is a beach party planned for that night, and it receives mixed reactions from the islanders. The guy who runs my hostel says he's going to watch the firework show, then changes his tune when a guest informs him what the spectacle's in aid of. The manager of Pas Perdus bar hasn't heard about the party, but is keen to go when I tell him about it.

The event is a mellow affair, with kids playing in the sand and their parents drinking from a bar selling 'liqueur, eau, jus, chips, biere, Smirnoff'. It's much like a day at the beach, except it's the middle of the night and there's a country band playing. As the fireworks explode above the lights of boats bobbing on the dark water, I hear the day's second general sigh of appreciation. Quebec may have its separatist ambitions, but here on Iles de la Madeleine, any excuse to gather on the beach and drink Molson Dry will do.

James Bainbridge is currently researching the Quebec section of the upcoming Canada guide.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Getting Jazzy in Montreal

Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007, 4:56 PM by Lonely Planet

On a budget? Love festivals? How about music in one of North America's most diverse and vibrant cities? Get yourself to Montreal right now, as the city comes alive in the unparalleled musical and cultural extravaganza that is the 28th Annual Montreal Jazz Festival.

If you're just arriving, a bed may be tough to find in the city, but the music and the parties are not. The festivities are centered around Montreal's always-beating heart, the Place des Arts; most events are with a four-block radius. Outdoor performances, of which there are over 350 on 12 stages, are free to all. The 150 indoor concerts rage from noon to midnight; you can purchase tickets (about $14-80) on-site or via the website.

Starting modestly in 1979 with only 12,000 spectators, the event has swelled over the years to become the world's largest such festival, drawing over two million visitors annually. The offerings are remarkable, from the greatest jazz musicians in history (Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Miles Davis) to budding hip-hop artists, some of whom found their big breaks on Montreal's stages.

That's right - hip-hop. And blues and flamenco and reggae, electronica, salsa. This event, birthed in a city noted for its tolerance, honors those same ideals and celebrates the far-reaching effects that jazz has had on countless music genres. "There is the strict definition of jazz," says festival co-founder Andre Menard, "that it has to be music that has some content, spirituality, and capacity for improvising. You can find that in many other music forms now. Jazz is the great classical music of the 20th century, so for us it's the main trunk, it's where everything starts."

A relatively new addition to the program is the Montreal Musician and Musical Instrument Show (MMMIS; July 5-8, noon-9pm) which promotes music-making through over 150 exhibits, workshops, interactive activities, tutorials, jams - all free!

This year the party starts on Thursday, June 28, and continues for 11 days with performances by Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Wynton Marsalis, Bill Frisell, Ravi Coltrane, Cesoria Evora, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Femi Kuti, Chaka Khan, Manu Chao, Pink Martini, The Coup, Skye, and heaps of musical geniuses you may have never heard of...yet.


- Emily K Wolman

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Siren's song for sedans

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007, 4:11 PM by Lonely Planet

A skeletal white pretzel erupts fifty feet into the air, ringed by a low wall of stones, animal skulls and rusting bits of unidentifiable machinery. 'Tis a wonder there aren't more car pile-ups in Imlay, Nevada. One minute drivers are dodging tumbleweeds skipping across the highway, and the next, this... thing glides into view.



Motorists who don't rubberneck and crash find themselves at Thunder Mountain, one of the weirder (and taller) roadside monuments on an otherwise uneventful interstate freeway. An architectural ode to injustices against Native Americans, it was pieced together by a troubled soul named Frank van Zant, who lived and built here until he ended his life in 1989. Mortared with a smash-up of bricks and bottles, car windshields, manual typewriters and scraps of whatever he had on hand, it's a folk art jumble of historical references, made piercing by the haunted faces of massacre victims.



Perpendicular to the highway, clumps of oddly-angled auto carcasses form a fence, the passenger compartments weighted down with old beer cans and the ubiquitous tumbleweeds. Perhaps they're a commentary on industrialised society. Or maybe they just wrecked and got pasted into the scenery.

This was Beth Kohn's last stop on her epic journey through the Southwest States, researching for the upcoming, kick-arse USA guidebook.

Labels: The Americas

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Dino-mite!

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 5:43 PM by Lonely Planet

Toothy monster reptiles once rumbled over the earth. In northeastern Utah, the towns in their former stomping grounds still enjoy playing up ancient history.



In the rolling hills of Jensen, a huge cache of dinosaur bones was discovered in 1909 at what's now Dinosaur National Monument. And no one lets you forget it. At a gift shop outside the park, kids and adults gawk appreciatively at the site-specific mascot. An undeniably family-friendly and photogenic specimen, this dino-buddy sits saddled up in a parking lot framed by pure blue sky, awaiting its Hollywood moment. Climb aboard the telescoping neck of this docile sea-green charmer, and if you've been good, maybe it will ride you off into the sunset.



A femme-y hot pink behemoth with feathery eyelashes welcomes folks to nearby Vernal, where the natural history museum hands out free dinosaur hunting licenses. That's as in spotting, so don't break out any prehistoric recipes for dinosaur steak. They are extinct, after all. The museum's outdoor garden looks like a chill-out zone for extras on the set of Jurassic Park. It's teeming with life-size replicas of giants like a woolly mammoth and a Tyrannosaurus rex, so there's a decent chance of bagging a few, if only on paper.

Beth Kohn has almost finished her Southwest States research for the USA guidebook. Last stop Nevada.

Labels: The Americas

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Captain CAAAVEMAAANN

Posted Sunday, June 17, 2007, 4:44 PM by Lonely Planet

How far would you go to add a few more bedrooms? For one family in Moab, Utah, an expansion of their digs involved oodles of elbow grease - and two decades of actual digging.



About 60 years ago, dusty uranium miners outnumbered slickrock mountain bikers in these legendary red rock ridges, and Albert Christensen decided that the family homestead was a tad too small. With the help of his brothers, he bore into an imposing stone face and whittled out a swinging subterranean wonder-pad. Chiselling with hand tools and setting off dynamite, he hauled out massive cartloads of sandstone, creating more than a dozen pillared and spacious rooms called Hole N'' the Rock.



After fashioning a surprisingly comfortable and climate-controlled residence, Albert didn't hibernate and kick his feet up. Not merely a caveman, he was also a Renaissance man. His attempts at taxidermy culminated in two alarmingly unhappy-looking stuffed horses, and who knows what his wife thought when he proudly arranged them in the living room. Perhaps viewing the sheer exterior as a blank canvas, he carved a pop-out memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his spare time.

Now uninhabited, a whitewashed and billboard-sized marker lures visitors seeking home improvement ideas.

Beth Kohn is exploring the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Next stop Utah's dinosaur country.

Labels: The Americas

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Sin shitty cuisine

Posted Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 4:25 PM by Lonely Planet

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and maybe that's a good thing. Some of the food and drink you find there just shouldn't make it home.



America's infamous bastion of dirty feel-good hedonism dishes out some seriously sinful culinary creations. Away from the glitzy dining at the Strip mega-resorts, meal prices drop and your cholesterol may spike to previously unimaginable levels. At one Downtown area casino, the fast food could be referring to the immediacy of your next coronary. For a mere 99 cents, treat your refined palette to some deep-fried Oreo cookies, and taste what happens when a sandwich creme cookie drowns in oil. Or sidle up to a deep-fried Twinkie, America's favourite shelf life-indeterminate sponge cake.



After a dose of comfort food that feels so wrong and tastes so right, a little liquid nourishment is in order. This being Vegas, it's got to be B-I-G. How about your favourite cocktail supersized beyond your ability to carry it? The Carnaval Bar sells drinks so gargantuan that the hookah-sized glasses attach to your neck with a leash. Almost three feet long, they're salaciously called a 'full yard with a strap-on'.

Bon appetit!

Next stop Utah for Beth Kohn - if she can get off the toilet in Vegas. Beth is exploring the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook.

Labels: The Americas

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Walking on air

Posted Monday, June 11, 2007, 5:33 PM by Lonely Planet

Say you owned a million acres of world-class real estate with to-die-for views. But access - such a headache! And the tourists you craved were already happy going to another, less out-of-the-way, vista point. What to do?

The Hualapai tribe in Arizona found themselves in this exact conundrum. Their land, part of the Grand Canyon (you may have heard of it), couldn't attract enough diehards willing to navigate its scenic yet butt-busting unpaved road. So they came up with a novel idea. Let people walk over the canyon!



A highly controversial yet fascinating case of 'if you build it, they will come', the Grand Canyon Skywalk is a slender and see-through glass horseshoe bridge jutting out from solid ground and levitating over a 4000-foot chasm. To prevent scuffing of the 5-layer glass floor, everyone must wear surgical overshoes. There's canyon ahead, behind and unspeakably far below. The terror-stricken prefer shuffling along near the handrail, though a fair number plonk down their sizeable admission, sashay up, peer down and decide to call it a day. Studying the abyss, one's mortality feels fragile, and the Skywalk's shadow appears like a partial halo.



Brashly commercial desecration or brazenly cool creation? Your call.

Beth Kohn, having dealt with flying saucers and walking on air, is now heading to Las Vegas for another sort of high. Beth is mucking about in the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook.

Labels: The Americas

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Moving in with Oscar the Grouch

Posted Thursday, June 07, 2007, 5:05 PM by Lonely Planet

If your space ship had to crash land somewhere on Planet Earth, Taos, New Mexico would be the perfect low-profile spot. The locals would just figure it was a new Earthship.



In the high desert scrub just outside town, adobe-coloured mounds bulge from the ground, wavy walls sparkle with a brilliant mosaic of embedded glass and then there's the fanciful turrets. A community of groovy off-the-grid houses called Earthships, the structures look like ornately camouflaged objects that might blast off any minute.



Tidy stacks of old car tires and empty beer cans aren't the aftermath of a booze-fuelled car promotion, but the raw materials for these 'biotecture' buildings. Constructed from unorthodox recycled materials, each house is completely self-sufficient, harvesting solar and wind power, collecting rainwater in huge cisterns and reutilizing grey water for landscaping or vegetable plots. A mixture of packed sand, tires and aluminium cans form the exterior shells, and embedded glass bottles filter sunlight into mesmerizing indoor rainbows. Flanked by distant snow-peaked mountains, guests can overnight in comfortable yet sustainable sumptuousness. The passively heated solariums riot with plants and playful multihued interiors rival those of an upscale boutique hotel.

So consider your refuse bin and imagine the future of housing.

Beth Kohn is getting down and dirty in the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Flying saucers. Earthships... Wonder what the hell she'll do next? Stay tuned.

Labels: The Americas

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Loving the alien

Posted Sunday, June 03, 2007, 5:18 PM by Lonely Planet

Otherworldly aliens dwell among us, at least in Roswell's many souvenir shops.

If you've ever thrilled to The X-Files, the incident at Roswell, New Mexico is already filed away in your top secret memory banks. In 1947, as Cold War hysteria sent Americans into a tongue-tied tizzy, a mysterious object crashed at a nearby ranch. No one would have skipped any sleep over it, but the military made a big to-do of hushing it up, and for a lot of folks, that sealed it. The aliens had landed!



International curiosity and local ingenuity have transformed the small city into a thriving extraterrestrial-wannabe zone. Downtown, bulbous white heads glow atop the street lamps, a fast-food chain takes the shape of a celestial spacecraft and the windows of the local music store have little space-dudes jamming on electric guitars. Inside the popular UFO Museum, pale elongated beings with huge eye sockets turn up everywhere. Aliens pop out of Christmas stockings in the gift shop and a huge silver-sequined flying saucer could be a back-up disco ball for the galactic 'in' crowd.



The crash heard 'round the world has even given the city a new logo- a spaceship with an outer space-friendly slogan: 'Visitors welcome.'

Beth Kohn is hovering through the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Alas, Beth didn't see any flying saucers, but stay tuned - next stop Earthship, Taos.

Labels: The Americas

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Saints, sinners and Marilyn Monroe

Posted Monday, May 28, 2007, 4:58 PM by Lonely Planet

Española in New Mexico is a decent little place - surely no one's idea of purgatory. On the main road through town, a flashing neon sign alternates from grinning white angel to a sizzling red smirking devil.



The Saints and Sinners liquor store has been idling on this stretch of the Taos highway since 1963, its flaking pitchfork-mounted beacon luring customers of both persuasions. Inside, locals help themselves to drinks and linger at a lone wooden table by the door. In a little taste of heaven, all bar tabs are paid on the honour system.



Back on the border with Mexico, Marilyn Monroe may be dead, but she's taking up a heck of a lot of space in Douglas, Arizona. At the Grand Cafe, the iconic blonde still pouts and poses, posthumously snapping up the entire wall surface in the Mexican restaurant's dining room. A previous owner began collecting the images, but her successors and various employees have continued to add to the collection, which now clocks in at more than 200 sultry photos. Glossy movie stills and French-language movie posters jostle for attention above diners and then spill down through the back hallway. The best detail? The men's restroom is for 'Gentlemen'.

Beth Kohn is cruising through the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Next stop Roswell... Now's your chance to ask her if she spotted any flying saucers.

Labels: The Americas

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RVs that crank up the kitsch

Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007, 5:33 PM by Lonely Planet

They're small, they're sassy and they're not going anywhere.

The Shady Dell, an Arizona trailer park in the historic copper mining town of Bisbee, is the most fun you can have stranded on cement blocks. A collection of almost a dozen restored trailers and kookily converted vehicles from the 1940s and '50s, guests overnight here in fabulous retro style.



Where most recreational vehicles swagger and sway down the gusty open road, these trailers charm with their cocktails-on-the-lawn indolence. There's a 1947 turquoise transit bus reimagined as a swingin' palm-fringed Tiki Bus. Decked out in cacti prints and flaming sunset reds, a homemade 10-footer stays cute and cosy on the inside and very Flash Gordon to the world outside. The gleaming gold 1957 Airfloat exudes Rat Pack-era Las Vegas. At dusk, an iconic 1949 Airstream glistens against the sensuous Mule Mountains.



Each trailer - and one landlocked Chris Craft yacht - comes decorated with vintage furnishings and stocked with popular period magazines. For the full-on cultural flashback, you can watch old movies on black and white TVs or listen to classic 45s as they spin, scratch and wobble on the phonograph.

Proof positive that RVs don't need gasoline to get your motor running.

Beth Kohn is currently on a road-trip through the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Over the next five weeks, Beth will be unearthing the quirk and bringing you the best in kitsch Americana. Got any hot tips for Beth?

Labels: The Americas

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Psychedelic sand castle

Posted Monday, May 21, 2007, 3:58 PM by Lonely Planet

If Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí had crawled feverishly through the Arizona desert, he might have hallucinated the Mystery Castle. Equal parts Mexican hacienda, Native American cliff dwelling and psychedelic sand castle, this bizarre art house dodges traditional labels.



Told that he would promptly die of tuberculosis, Boyce Luther Gulley fled his family in 1930 and relocated to the sandy cacti-stubbled hills outside Phoenix, Arizona. He hurled himself into a mammoth construction project, erecting a fantasy home limited only by his imagination and scarce water supplies.

Recycling materials dumped at the city limits, he fashioned telegraph poles into hulking ceiling beams and oxen yokes into chandeliers. Over the next fifteen years, he pieced together eighteen stone and adobe rooms, including a wedding chapel with a mosaic serpent floor and a basement bar sliced from a wooden wagon. A truly organic builder, he mixed the piazza cement with available local ingredients, including goat's milk.

When Gulley passed away, his estranged wife and daughter arrived and discovered a trap door, now guarded by a toothy metal alligator. When they finally unsealed the vault, they found two $500 bills and a cache of gold nuggets. His daughter has lived there ever since. Thanks, Dad!



Mystery Castle: 602-268-1581; 800 E Mineral Rd, Phoenix, Arizona

- Beth Kohn is currently on a road-trip through the Southwest States researching the USA guidebook. Over the next five weeks, Beth will be unearthing the quirk and bringing you the best in kitsch Americana. Have you been to Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada? What should Beth look out for?

Labels: The Americas

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South by Southwest (SXSW)

Posted Monday, March 12, 2007, 4:47 PM by Lonely Planet

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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Chavez victorious in the Venezuelan election

Posted Monday, December 11, 2006, 5:07 PM by Lonely Planet

What does his re-election mean for tourism to the country? One of our Venezuelan researchers reports:

Venezuela is a pretty full on country. Coming from Colombia, I am astonished just how different Venezuela is from its neighbour. I joke with the locals that I live in Colombia because it's safer than Venezuela.

I fear the political developments in Venezuela will have a negative impact on tourism in the country. I have spoken to many posada owners and tour operators, on the coast especially, who tell me that every year since Chavez came to power they've seen fewer and fewer domestic tourists. I meet middle class people who are making plans to leave the country.

Compared to other countries in South America, Venezuela is expensive, the people can be unfriendly, the food ordinary and the official exchange rate means there's no bang for your buck. Venezuela is a country drunk on its own oil wealth. It's not a quiet, chatty sort of drunk, though, it's the rude brawler in the corner looking for a fight.

So is the socialism preached by Chavez really an alternative to the unbearable tyranny of the American capitalist model, or just an idealised vision? If you go to Venezuela, obviously you can decide for yourself.

But the formula seems simple: if you get all the money you want from Uncle Chavez, who cares about tourists? Why bother attempting to provide good service? Heck, why work hard to begin with, some corrupt official is just going to mooch off your hard work anyway! It's sad, but the service industry will suffer, so the travellers may just start to stay away.

And the question remains - what happens when the oil runs out?

Like the ancient proverb goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.

Labels: Breaking travel news, On the road, The Americas

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Passport to Mexico

Posted Monday, December 04, 2006, 4:27 PM by Lonely Planet

Used to be that if Americans were feeling frisky, all they had to do was drive over the border into Tijuana to indulge in the vices not so easy to find back home. Maybe they'd even pick up a black market velvet Elvis. Or a Bart Simpson piggy bank. Or a box of Chiclets.

Not so simple these days. As of January 2007, Americans looking to take advantage of all that Mexico has to offer will need a passport. This is also true for those looking to see what Canada is all 'aboot.' Folks heading to the Caribbean will need to remember their all-important passport when visiting the islands - at least if they're going by land. Cruise ship passengers get a little bit of a reprieve due to a strong lobby - almost as strong as the NRA, only this time, Gopher's in charge, not Charlton Heston. You will need two forms of ID - your birth certificate and a driver's license - to embark and disembark the ship at all ports. Of course, all this is slated to change as of January 2008, so you might as well just get a passport.

The situation is ever-changing, so you might want to check here for the most up-to-date information. Of course, our take is you should already have a passport anyway, just in case you need to get the hell outta dodge.

Labels: The Americas, Travelsnitch

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The art smarts

Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 8:46 PM by Lonely Planet

Cities rise and cities fall, and then sometimes they rise again. Rome, for example, or Berlin - both had their down times but both are seriously back. Detroit was one of those cities that rose and fell, but no one really ever expected to rise again. Race riots, the demise of the motor industry and white evacuation to the suburbs all played a part in leaving much of Detroit a burned out shell. The explosive impact of the late '90s Detroit music scene (The White Stripes, The Detroit Cobras, The Von Bondies, The Dirtbombs, The Come Ons and, um, Eminem) suggested there was life in Mo-Town yet, but a rock movement does not an urban renewal make.

From its musical exports alone you'd know that some of the best things about the city are its grit and its grunge. Of course, these are also among its worst things. So what's a Detroiter set on rejuvenating the city to do? Encourage Starbucks and Pottery Barn to set up shop and risk destroying the edge, or reject bland homogenity and embrace the slide into picturesque decay?

The new Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (aka Mocad) likes it both ways. Launched into the shell of an unrenovated abandoned car dealership in October, Mocad commissioned Barry McGee to slather its building with grafitti. Heat lamps hang from the ceiling and giant garage doors can be rolled up to let art meet street. Sure, there's a coffee shop, but it couldn't be further from the manufactured congeniality of Starbucks. Mocad is keeping it real - making Detroit liveable without giving up what makes Detroit Detroit. And one of their first exhibitions originated in that great fallen-city-come-good; Berlin's 'Shrinking Cities' exhibition investigates the decay of Detroit, Ivanovo, Manchester and Leipzig.

Labels: Festivals and events, The Americas

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