“To travel,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” For those of us who have traveled to places with autocratic leadership—like Cuba, China, Burma, or Iran—the wisdom of Huxley’s words is undeniable. Today, the United States itself has become a sketchy destination. Travelers from around the world, put off […]
“In a real revolution, you either win or die.” – Ernesto “Ché” Guevara (who managed to do both) I was twelve years old when Ché Guevara was shot by a firing squad in Bolivia. That was in October, 1967. The Argentina-born Guevara had left Cuba, and was fomenting revolution among Bolivia’s farmers. He was ambushed, […]
Let me level with you, readers. I came here with big plans for writing concise, revealing dispatches, in 800 words or less. But Cuba is one of the most complex, nuanced societies I’ve visited, awash in delights and frustrations. It would be a maddening place to make sense of even if it wasn’t in the […]
A weathered individual stood against the sea wall of the Malecón, holding a battered guitar. He made a comment as I walked past him, chatting with Amanda and Cristina. We’d just come from dinner at El Patio, an architecturally lovely restaurant, with unusual stained glass windows and divider screens, on the Plaza de la Catedral. […]
In 1960, right after the revolution, Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara met on the grounds of the Havana Country Club, a golf course in the posh suburbs of the Miramar district. They posed together for pictures, played some golf and brainstormed about what they were going to do with this gorgeous monument to bourgeois manners. […]
Journalist Jeff Greenwald, co-founder and executive director of Ethical Traveler, will be visiting Cuba between mid-June and early July. His dispatches and photos will be filed as time and Internet access permit. There are only a few countries in the world that have intimidated me; places where the social and political atmosphere is so electric, […]
TAVEUNI, FIJI – We’re on our way back from Rainbow Reef, heading for a dive site called Orgasmic, when we see the buoy. There are three of us in the boat: me, and two Fijians. Jone (“Johnny”) is the lively, perpetually grinning divemaster at Susie’s Plantation — a rustic and welcoming resort down the west […]
VANUA LEVU, FIJI — In 1643, the year after he “discovered” New Zealand and Tasmania, navigator Abel Tasman threaded his ship between the treacherous reefs surrounding this volcanic island. Tasman’s report on the passage was so daunting that his fellow navigators would avoid the area for another 150 years. Four and a half centuries later, […]
CAT BA ISLAND, VIETNAM — “There are no guarantees,” says Rosie, “that you will see even one langur the whole time you are on Cat Ba Island.” Sure, I nod. I understand. I get it — but I don’t get it. True, it was a full four months before project director Rosie Stenke saw her […]
