Word for the Travel Wise (05/05/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

It’s Cinco de Mayo and a Friday night as well. I’m sure a few of you are out partying if you haven’t hit a happy hour or two already, so I won’t bother keeping you long with today’s lesson. I’m just thrilled to be feeling a tid bit better after having a yucky days long head and chest cold.  Hopefully your road to Cinco de Mayo wasn’t one of the same. For all those out there having a round of drinks, please, have one for me.

Today’s word is a Spanish word from Mexico:

enfermo / enferma – sick

Amerispan, Cactus Language and IMAC are all good starting points to learning abroad. A free membership at Spanish Unlimited gives you the opportunity to learn a new word everyday by email, gain pen pals and hear audio of the words. Their website is actually a good resource tool for many different Spanish related topics. I won’t even begin to list some of the texts out there that could further your studies because there are entirely too many. If you know of some language books that would be useful please feel free to list them.

Past Spanish words: escalar, cercano, realidad

Bus Goes Off Road in Mexico

by Erik Olsen on

Crazy, bad news. An overcrowded
bus was coming back from a religious festival in Mexico and accidentally veered off a highway emergency ramp,
crashing through the road barrier, and plunging and tumbling almost 700 feet into a ravine. How completely awful. The
accident took the lives of fifty-seven people, including a 13-year-old boy. As someone who has done a little bit of bus
travel in Mexico, I can tell you this does not much surprise me. What a nightmare.

Adventure Tours

by Neil Woodburn on

The centerpiece of this year’s Men’s Journal Adventure Issue is the adventures
themselves.  The May issue highlights a great selection of
“Classic Adventure Trips” and tells
us how to do them right.  Although I’m always a little skeptical when such articles point us directly to
tour outfitters who will help us do such things, the writers have at least included enough information to whet
appetites and get the old adventure spirit pumping.

While some of the Classic Adventures can be accomplished easily enough on your own—diving the Great Barrier
Reef, cycling through Tuscany, and surfing Scorpion Bay in Mexico—others are far more involved and you might do
well to consider some of the tour operators even if you hate this type of organized travel as much as I do. 
Let’s face it; you’re never going to raft the Zambezi River or race a sailboat across the Atlantic on your
own. 

Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa

by Erik Olsen on

Of all the touristy resorts down in Mexico, I suppose Cabo San Lucas is my favorite. It is, at least, the
most calm among Acapulco, Cancun and all those. And for those who agree and are interested in heading down to Cabo, you
might check out the Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa, which is drawing tourists and
new age types to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

Right on the Pacific,the 140-room retreat has luxurious beach side
suites and a full-service spa with a half-dozen treatment rooms and a "therapeutic chamber." The resort’s
Siempre Restaurant serves healthy meals (yes, vegans, you are welcome) around a glamorous infinity pool, and there’s
also a poolside restaurant-bar for apres dinner celebration.

Amansala Bikini Boot Camp

by Karen Walrond on

Yesterday, I was whining to a friend of mine on the
phone.

"I just don’t get it.  I’m working out, and not losing any weight.  My butt? 
It’s getting its own gravitational pull, it’s so big."

"Oh please," my friend
responded.  "Don’t even talk to me.  I can’t seem to stop eating.  I’m apparently on a mission to
inhale everything in sight."

The unfortunate whining continued, and when I got off the phone, I didn’t
feel any better.  I wish I could just get a sign of what I’m supposed to do, I thought to myself.

The sign came this morning, as I was on the treadmill.

I was leafing through my copy of MACO Destinations (which, by the way, is one of the best magazines out there when it
comes to great recreational travel in the Caribbean and Central America), and I came across Amansala Resort,  an "eco-chic resort in Tulum, Mexico." 
Located on the Caribbean side of Mexico, Amansala’s claim to fame is the Bikini Boot Camp — a six-night package guaranteed to make
you look better in your bikini.  The no-phones-no-television-no-computers resort boasts all fresh, organic meals, a
wonderful spa, and the boot camp comes with six hours a day of exercise — but since it comes in the form of yoga, long
beach walks, snorkeling, and visits to Mayan ruins, guests will hardly mind.  The resort has also been visited by
many of the rich and famous:  Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Cindy Crawford, Jade Jagger and Benicio del Toro, to name a
few.

As of the time of the printing of MACO, the package cost $1575 for the six night camp, and includes all
meals, drinks, activities, plus two massages and a Mayan clay treatment.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to tell
my friend we need to call our travel agent.