Chronicles of On The Road Travel

Friday Funny: Monkey Head

Ever see people with 'big hair' and wonder if they've got something living in their hair, or if they are storing frequently-needed accessories in there? One man took this to an entirely new level this week, traveling from Lima, Peru to New York with a monkey hidden in his hair. Apparently the marmoset was noticed by fellow passengers who cleverly asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on his head...

Sounds like the little guy was pretty well behaved, but was nonetheless greeted by the authorities upon landing and will face a month-long quarantine.

Note to self: leave pet monkey at home.

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The 07/07 Phenomenon

For those of you who won't be traveling to a wedding on this, the most popular wedding weekend ever (07/07/07), or one of Las Vegas' luckiest weekends, here's a fun read describing a 07/07 phenomenon of a different sort.. turns out the 7-7 travel game is quite popular amongst the young travel crowd: seven continents, seven encounters. Yes, that's right, travelers strive to hook up with one person from each of the seven continents. The author's conclusion provides a good Friday Funny:

7-7 is a lofty goal and it is not to be taken lightly. It requires a lot of time and a lot of effort, even occasionally, a lot of money - I see nothing wrong with wining and dining your way into one more continent if that’s what it takes.

But I for one, feel that it’s important to have goals in life and surely none can be more fun to attain than this!

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Princess Fiona Visits the Lost City of the Incas

This past weekend, Cameron Diaz, who plays Princess Fiona in Shrek, among many other movies and characters, visited Machu Picchu as part of a Canadian TV production titled '4 Real'. The idea of the show is to focus on young community leaders around the world. This particular episode was to celebrate Peru's culture.

Unfortunately, Cameron made a serious fashion faux-pas. She happened to be sporting a souvenir from a tourist trip to China - an olive green shoulder bag with a big red star and the words 'Serve The People' written across it. I highly doubt that she had any idea what it meant when she bought the bag, and it is more unlikely that she realized the slogan's relation to Peru, whose citizen's were terrorized by the Maoist Shining Path movement in the 80's. Nonetheless, you would hope that someone on the crew of 4 Real might have picked up on the issue, given that the nature of the show was to promote cultural awareness.

It's not something we had previously considered, but maybe we'll add it under the 'What not to do' in our Guide to Visiting Machu Picchu.

Would You Penalize the Pope for Forgetting his Passport?

With all the recent news about celebrities being above the law, an inequality of a different sort surfaced regarding the Pope's recent visit to Brazil. Apparently both the Pope and the Vatican's Secretary of State arrived in Brazil without their passports. I think we all agree the the Pope is not likely to try to plant roots in Brazil, and that it wasn't worth making a fuss over, but the Brazilian government did fine Alitalia, the Italian airline that transported the Pope and his entourage, for allowing the two passengers to travel without passports.

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  Cronica Spencer Tunick Mexico 
  Originally uploaded by netwalker100.

A Whole Lot of Naked People

Spencer Tunick has done it again. Known for his quirky abstract photos featuring large groups of naked people in historical spots around the globe, Spencer Tunick has just completed a photoshoot in Mexico City's famous Zócalo square. 18,000 people participated in this 'installation' in Mexico, breaking his previous attendance record of 7,000 in Barcelona. Other disrobed destinations have included Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, London, Montreal, Santiago and Helsinki.

Next stop... Amsterdam. Sign up to participate here:
www.spencertunick.com

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Travel Funnies: Bush Demonizes Mayan Site in Guatemala

Earlier this month George Bush traveled to Guatemala in an effort to spread the good cheer and convince Central Americans that CAFTA actually is going to benefit them. It seems that his presence was less than appreciated by the Mayan community, who reportedly planned to cleanse the sacred site at Iximche after Bush visited it in order to get rid of any bad spirits he may have left behind.

Although George Bush may not be welcome here, OTR travelers have been embraced with open arms at Mayan sites. If you plan to travel to Guatemala, be sure to check out our local recommendations and advice.

Travel Funnies: The Avant-Garde Traveler

I laughed out loud recently reading the January issue of  Outside Traveler Magazine. If you've ever sat in a room with a group of well-traveled people you will understand how, these days, it's tough to have a travel story that tops them all. Travelers stomach? Really old story. Ate bat in a Laotian hut? The guy next to me has caught and eaten the bat. Gotten stuck in the Bolivian desert at dusk without a ride back to town? Someone else has been held hostage and dragged into that desert...

Tim Neville writes about the dying art of impressing others with travel experiences. The travel writer tells his readers "If you keep popping up in the "exotic" settings of my stories and discovering for yourselves how easy it is to come home unscathed, I'm going to have to find real work."

It's true, more and more people are traveling to destinations that were once reserved for only the truly adventurous. When I backpacked through Laos in 1998 I felt like a true pioneer. Especially because the 1 year-old, first edition of the Lonely Planet Laos I was using, was about as useful to me as a pair of high heels. Although I did eat some fire-grilled bat (I think! The LP's 'expressions and language' section was equally useless), the story hardly seems worthy of cocktail party chatter these days.

The real point addressed by the article though, is what is causing this outburst of international courage? Tourism to Latin America for example, which has traditionally been 'one of those places folks generally don't go' because of political instability and all-around danger, is booming!

Is it because we've been threatened on our own turf that we feel it is finally OK to go to places that might be dangerous? Or is it that we've become braver and that political stability in Guatemala or an extremely enticing currency valuation in Argentina is enough to draw us in?

I'm not sure what it is. And although I agree with the author that, in a way, it sucks, at the end of the day it can only be a good thing if people are willing to broaden their perspectives by getting to know other cultures.

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Travel Funnies - Typo Travails

Hopefully you all managed to escape the holiday mess that occurred at airports around the world. I returned home safe and sound after mistakenly assuming that the airport in Hawaii wouldn't be busy in the middle of a holiday week. I'm thankful though, that I wasn't this guy, who accidentally booked his flight to Sidney, Montana rather than Sydney, Australia. Talk about a let down - especially since he was half way there before he realized the mistake.

I'm glad I didn't succumb to the same error - I may have ended up in Kuwait rather than Kauai!

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Sun, Sand & Scandal

With the holiday season upon us once again, millions of people will be leaving the comforts of home to either visit family in a far off place or to take a relaxing vacation in an exotic location (or both if you're lucky). When people enter a new environment they are often disoriented and let their guard down when it comes to sensible decisions. This tends to leave foreigners and tourists open to common street scams. If you are traveling to a foreign country you are even more susceptible to scams because you may look different from the locals and you may not have a grasp of the language.

Conde Naste Traveler this month featured an article on just this topic. Sad but funny, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

The Baby Toss - where a woman tries to throw her kid at you so that you will drop your purse and catch the kid as a reflex (come on... really?)

The Phony Parking Lot Attendant - who takes money in return for watching your car, or worse yet - takes your keys for the valet (I think I've fallen for this!)

The Metal Detector Trap -  when the friendly airport staff is yelling at you to stop! and proceed! through the line up and you get separated from your bags in the caffufle (amazingly this hasn't happened yet but I usually try to put my stinky runners on the top of the pile on the conveyer belt to stave off any lurking thiefs)

The New Yorker also recently published some fun, but rather off-the-wall situations. Like the guy who  offers to take a polariod of your money doing weird touristy things like admiring art, and then runs away with your money leaving you with a photo to remind you how stupid you were. Now that's just funny... it would almost be worth the photo if someone pulled that off.

Our advice: always keep your eyes open and try to fit in like a local.

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Travel Funnies

This one was too easy to let pass... no pun intended. Apparently an American Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing on Monday when a passenger let it rip at altitude and tried to cover up the evidence by lighting a match. Let this be a warning for other travelers...

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