New York seems to alternate between madness and brilliance.
The madness part is easy to spot. Eight million residents and more than 50 million visitors each year make for congestion and queues, occasional frayed tempers and a colourful cast of characters ranging from drag queens to buskers to illicit street vendors.
But this tranquil and tropical archipelago of 40 islands (eight inhabited), located where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic just south-east of the Bahamas, also boasts the clearest and brightest turquoise water we’ve ever seen, fantastic white sand beaches and several resorts that rate among the best in the world.
This is hardly an exhaustive list but here are a few things you might want to try (or give a miss) during a stay in Peru.
European monasteries have provided lodgings to travellers and pilgrims for more than 1500 years and many of today’s institutions open to tourists – from France and Italy to Spain and Portugal – are often more like bed and breakfast accommodation than a place of religious reflection and prayer.
The island is also committed to nature with its Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW). With a full-time vet, many students and a corps of volunteers, it’s dedicated to finding and healing injured birds and animals from the local counties. The clinic has an owl rehab centre and three fully equipped, modern operating rooms. More than 4,000 ‘patients’ are treated each year before being returned to the wild.
Water travel can be soothing at the best of times, but cruising at sunset on a calm tropical estuary is magic, particularly when you have the benefit of a seasoned guide. Pat Toomey knows the waters of Trinity Inlet well. He has been sailing them off and on for most of his life and most recently, almost every day for the past six years as skipper of the 69-passenger Crocodile Explorer.
A couple of hour train trip to Machu Picchu, one of the new Seven Wonders of the Modern World, this hotel is tucked on the slope of an Andean peak, surrounded by immaculate gardens and served by a gourmet restaurant with fine exemplars of both traditional dishes and new Peruvian delights such as world renowned seafood dish, ceviche.
The burning of Upper Canada’s capital during the War of 1812, a war that played a significant role in fostering Canada’s identity, is one in which combatants from both sides are still remembered as part of a legacy of 200 years of peace between Canada and the United States. To mark that fateful day of April 27 almost two hundred years ago, both the City of Toronto and the Canadian Armed Forces will hold several events in Toronto’s downtown and along the lakefront.
Having passed through well over forty different countries I’ve have found something to awe, impress, excite, fascinate or calm me in every single one. But I’d never found a place to which I thought I’d be content to return every single year…at least until I met Grenada.
The only region in the Caribbean that has a completely intact major coral reef eco-system is the Jardines de la Reina (Queen’s Gardens) coral reef off Cuba’s south coast.
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