I have never flown over a place where a city just stopped, separated by a vast expanse of reasonably pristine bush (national park, hooray!) by nothing more than a rail track. I’ve never been anywhere as smoky and smoggy as the outskirts of Nairobi.
Hotels
Aug 222010
Aug 212010
The next hop of our trip took us to Chumbe, a coral island beach resort off the South-West coast of Zanzibar. The founders and management pride themselves on their ecological credentials, but beyond being a lovely place in a stunningly beautiful location, it’s as good an argument against compost toilets as I’ve ever seen.
Aug 202010
Holy everloving shit, I’ve never seen so many giraffes in my entire life. Already flying into Tarangire national park in Tanzania, with a redheaded English aviatrix at the stick, we got an idea of what would await us. She insisted that, occasionally, the guides waiting to pick up tourists at the rough-hewn airstrip didn’t do [...]
Aug 172010
The trip to Zanzibar, although long, was reasonable enough, and aside from four hours spent (as probably the only haram dhimmi kafir infidel types in a surreal windowless Nairobi airport basement sleeping lounge — $42 for four hours — thoroughly uneventful. The only real excitement came when we learned Kenya Airways had lost Karin’s suitcase.
Aug 172009
Motoring South toward Limerick, we cruised across the Burren, a rocky area known for its flowers and cows. The cows, particularly, were a welcome sight, as they’re (a) fairly picturesque, (b) stay the hell off the roads at night and (c) make for some outstanding steaks — most of the non-seafood (and even some of [...]
Seano said Dublin was now a toilet, with unemployed scoundrels thronging the bread lines every since Ireland’s economy imploded. Seano is also on crack. Dublin, at least the city center that we were selectively exposed to, seems to be doing its best to deny the fact that Ireland’s economy is supposed to be imploding. “What? [...]
Dec 272008
2001 Vacqueyras Mention the whole items. Plus old people. Les St Jacques fraîches rôties à la plancha en croûte de citron et gingembre, Crémeux de céleri maison émulsionné à la truffe
“If you drink, don’t drive. Don’t even putt.” Kind of ironic for a winery hotel to have a Dean Martin quote about drinking on its web page — especially considering that they’re 8 miles from nowhere.
Jan 022008
Davos is not a particularly attractive town. It bills itself as the highest city in Switzerland; it’s high, but it’s not really a city, and at 1800m, it ain’t no La Paz either (and thank god for that.) The place has a constant stream of dirty expensive German cars and other miscellaneous wheels slogging down [...]
Sex, cigarettes, chocolate, bourbon, white empty sandy beaches, fast cars, excellent restaurants, airline upgrades, (cute) girls in very small bikinis, good wine, and attractive, small hotels with ace infrastructure, longered in beautiful, peaceful scenery. OK, that’s only a partial list, but you get the general idea.