March 28, 2006

Mr. Caruso, Meet Mr. Escobar

As a journalist, I have a mordid delight in typos found in other publications. And my current favorite even happens to be travel related, so I can unabashedly include it here. From last Sunday's New York Times Travel section comes the following correction:

"A report in the In Transit column on March 12 about the Casa Magna resort on the Riviera Maya in Mexico misstated the name of the Daniel Defoe literary character invoked in a description of the resort's rooms. He is Robinson Crusoe, not Caruso. The column also misspelled the name of the native country of Pablo Escobar, a known drug lord who once owned the property. He was Colombian, not Columbian."

January 19, 2005

Transcendent Travel Experiences

Watering Albert Camus’ untended grave in the pretty Provence town of Lourmarin
(photo at right, by Henri Bosco)

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Finding the perfect, isolated beach on one of Mexico’s Bahías de Huatulco

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Standing in the Pantheon, in Rome, and watching light rain filter through the oculus, the “eye of God”

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Cruising full speed ahead across Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala, in a rickety motorboat driven by two 10-year-old boys

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Eating rijsttafel and drinking witbier in Amsterdam

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Visiting Jerusalem’s Western Wall and tucking a prayer on a slip of paper in the cracks between the stones


Greco04_4Being overwhelmed by the immensity and intensity of El Greco’s canvasses at the Prado, in Madrid

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Surviving the harrowing bus ride up to Machu Picchu, then stumbling out and seeing the site for the first time

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Sitting on the river’s edge across from Notre Dame at night, drinking a bottle of wine and watching lights glimmer in the Seine

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Watching the sun set over the Pyramid of the Magician at the Mayan ruins of Uxmal, Mexico

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Enjoying a leisurely lunch at Le Fournil, in Bonnieux, France

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Being enveloped by the sinuous Alhambra—by day, by night, any and every time

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Seeking out every Caravaggio painting in Rome

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Doing yoga at sunrise on the beach at Mexico’s Maya Tulum resort

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Drinking a bottle of cava in a leafy square in the old section of Girona, Spain

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Chancing to find, in Barcelona, the astonishing "Migrations" exhibit by the great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado (Salgado photo at right, Vung Tau, Vietnam, 1995) Salgadovietnam_2