When my ferry arrived in La Paz, Mexico a couple of weeks ago, I had only an hour or so to check out the town before boarding the bus that would take me across Baja California to Todos Santos. I walked along the Malecon and snapped a few photos; it seemed like a nice enough little town but I wasn’t turning cartwheels over it. Fortunately, during my stay at Rancho Pescadero I met Danny the bartender, born and raised in La Paz, who convinced me to spend a few days there. Danny was so right.

Although La Paz enjoys modest tourism, it is not overrun with tourists and expats. The downtown streets are filled with locals doing their daily shopping, attending church, chatting in the town square. People are extremely friendly and everyone seems to be smiling; I even found a fantastic, extremely affordable Mexican restaurant in La Paz. But the real beauty of La Paz starts where the land meets the sea.

Exquisite Corralito Beach on Espiritu Santu Island

Water so pure it looks otherworldly

Gorgeous Balandra Bay is a picture perfect swath of powdery white sand beach backed by purple and ochre cliffs, with water so excruciatingly turquoise it is hard to believe the color is real. Beyond Balandra is Espiritu Santo Island, a nature preserve with dozens of pristine deserted beaches, coral reefs teeming with tropical fish, and sea lions that are so friendly they will swim right up to your snorkel mask. The Sea of Cortez off the coast of La Paz is also one of the few places in the world where snorkelers and divers can swim beside enormous but gentle whale sharks as they scoop up plankton and krill with their giant mouths.

Giant whale shark comes up right beside the boat

I visited this water wonderland with Carey Dive Center, an excellent tour/dive operation that has designed a day trip that combines all of these activities and more. Words are simply not sufficient to describe the stunning scenery and wildlife in and around Balandra Bay and Espiritu Santo Island, so I put together the following brief video.

I’ve much enjoyed my time in Baja California, but it’s time to head back across the Sea of Cortes to Barrancas del Cobre – Mexico’s Copper Canyon – a remote area in the state of Chihuahua that encompasses the deepest canyon in North America. Copper Canyon is home to the reclusive Tarahumara Indians chronicled in the book, “Born to Run,” and I hope to spend time with Tarahumara during my visit. Tomorrow evening I board the ferry back across the Sea of Cortez, this time to Topolobampo, and bus through Los Mochis to El Fuerte, where I’ll spend a few days before boarding the famous El Chepe train through the canyon.

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Moon Tahiti by David Stanley

Several months ago, author David Stanley offered to send me a copy of his guide book “Moon Fiji,” for which I wrote a glowing review. Since I was so impressed, Stanley offered to send me Moon Tahiti for review as well.

Travel guides, while unquestionably useful, are hardly the kind of books one chooses for an afternoon of leisurely reading. Usually, when heading for a new destination, I throw a guide in my pack and never even crack it until I arrive. Upon arrival I use my guide to identify budget accommodations, vegetarian restaurants, and attractions worth seeing. But I never actually read them and, because they are heavy, almost always leave them behind at the conclusion of my trip.

Stanley’s guides are different. He has traveled the South Pacific so extensively that they beg to be read from cover to cover, and Moon Tahiti is no exception. Tahiti is just one of 118 islands in French Polynesia, a nation that encompasses a vast ocean area 18 times the size of California; any traveler who had not previously visited the area would be hard pressed to determine which islands are most worth a visit. As with his last guide, my favorite part of Moon Tahiti is in the very front of the book, where Stanley outlines seven, ten, and 14 day suggested itineraries that have been designed to coordinate with the schedules of local airlines and boats, many of which serve the outlying islands only once or twice a week. These itineraries alone, which could save hours or even weeks of research and planning, make Moon Tahiti well worth its modest price of $13.57 at Amazon.com.

Those on a budget will find this guide to be an especially valuable resource. Tahiti is a fairly expensive destination, thus Stanley’s thorough inventory of Read the rest of this entry »

In early May I wrote about plans to scuttle the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, a WWII troop carrier and Cold War era spy ship, seven miles off the coast of Key West in order to create the world’s second largest artificial reef for divers. The sinking, which occurred on May 27, 2009, was done by Associated Marine Salvage and was documented by several videographers. One of the best videos, produced by Fla-Keys.com, can be viewed by clicking on the photo below:

USS Vandenberg Video

SinkTheVandenberg.com also has some fascinating, short clips, including videos from cameras mounted on the ship during the sinking. I was surprised by these views. I expected a big bang from the multiple, simultaneous detonations but it was more like a series of soft pops followed by puffs of smoke. And then, down she went – fast! Thirteen years of work to bring her to Key West ended in less than two minutes.

The Vandenberg is already attracting interest from divers all over the world and is sure to be a boon to tourism. I look forward to watching the ship morph into a living reef, and on some not-too-distant day, comparing my photo of the docked ship to one of its coral-encrusted sunken hull.

Moon Fiji by David Stanley

Most people who travel a lot – especially budget travelers – have at one time or another invested in a guide book. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are well known names in the genre; less well known are the Moon guide books. In fact, I had never before read a Moon guide until a copy of Moon Fiji came my way, courtesy of author David Stanley.

I have never actually read a travel guide. It usually gets stuck it in my backpack and pulled out for reference when I’m looking for an affordable place to stay, a decent meal, or to figure out which sights are must sees. Moon Fiji, however, is a different kind of guide book. That may be partly due to its author, who has crossed six continents overland and visited 193 of the planet’s 245 countries. For his first trip across the Pacific in 1978, Stanley bought the longest ticket ever issued in Canada by Pan American Airways. Though Stanley has traveled widely and become a specialist on many parts of the world, he keeps returning to his favorite area, the South Pacific.

I read this guide book from cover to cover and I highly recommend purchasing Moon Fiji if you are South Pacific bound. This compact guidebook does everything right. Take, for example, the following examples of what I found within: Read the rest of this entry »

Position: The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Location: Hamilton Island Employer: Tourism Queensland Compensation: A salary package of AUD $150,000 for a six-month contract (that’s $96,950.34 in U.S. dollars) Responsibilities: Through weekly blog posts, a photo journal, and a video gallery, tell the world what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The schedule could include sampling a new luxury spa treatment at qualia on Hamilton Island, trying out new snorkeling gear on Heron Island, or bushwalking on Hinchinbrook Island. Not to mention mandatory daily walks on the stunning, white sand beaches.

Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Queensland.

The position, which is being touted as “The Best Job In The World,” has been advertised in newspapers around the globe and on the following video, which Queensland Tourism posted to YouTube:

Within hours of the appearance of the video, the agency’s website crashed when thousands of curious web surfers clicked through to see if the job was for real. Read the rest of this entry »

“Miss, you come in, I give you free drink.”

“Hello, where you stay? Come sit, try free drink.”

With every step I take along the road in this sleepy village someone tries to lure me into a conversation. So far they have all been sitting under open-air, thatch-top pavilions that serve as restaurants. I just shake my head no and keep walking. I am in search of an Internet Cafe. There is a third guy now, standing on the dirt shoulder of the road.

“Good morning – how are you?” he asks. “I am fine,” I reply. The Balinese are so polite that you want to respond in kind, even when they are in-your-face aggressively trying to sell you something. It is a trap they use very effectively. “Where are you staying?” he asks, in perfect English. I motion to the end of the road, “Down there somewhere,” I say. “I want to be your friend,” he continues. “My name is Delta. You want to go sit on the beach and talk?” He flashes a brilliant smile at me. Delta is about 5’8″ tall with jet-black, curly shoulder length hair and stunningly white, perfectly straight teeth. He is cute and he knows it. He can’t be more than 30 years old, although Read the rest of this entry »