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From Puerto Rico - to Amazon Piranhas -
and
lots in between!
| www.GlenStephens.com The #1 Philatelic Web Site in Australia! |
From Puerto Rico - to Amazon Piranhas -
and
lots in between!
A
‘Happy 2002’ to clients. This
34,538 mile end of year Safari took me via the usual brain numbing maze
of 14 plane flights to 7 different countries,
from mid December to mid January.
First up - 30 hours of flights, airports
and security check madness from Sydney-SFO-Washington-Miami.
This all commenced AFTER
I’d been literally awake for 30 hours catching up with paperwork and overdue
orders &c. That Sheraton
Biscayne Bay Hotel bed sure looked GOOD after 60 hours since last seeing a
mattress!
These marathon flights are pretty painless as I fly one airline all the
time. I book very cheap
economy class tickets and they upgrade me in advance on every flight,
every trip, to every
destination. And generally treat me
like a king en-route at all times, at
all levels, in all circumstances
due to my highest level Elite flyer status with them.
A 14½ hour flight in a quiet cabin lying flat upstairs with 2 metres of
space in front of you, after a
bottle of Veuve Cliquot makes the time go pretty effortlessly!
Talk to me about these benefits and upgrades.
It can easily work for you
too! If they awarded
Doctorates in Airline and Hotel Tips, I’d
be an Emeritus Professor! Right now
I can get ANYONE reading this 5,000
free bonus miles for
taking a flight to the USA – ask me.
From Miami [after a long sleep!] a
Caribbean Cruise on the ‘Explorer
Of The Seas’. This
is the world’s largest vessel. Some
30% larger class than any other ship ever built.
She is 138,000 tons and
only a year old, so is not worn and
tired like many liners.
‘The Titanic’
weighed 46,000 tons and had a draft of 60 feet – this boat draws only 29 feet
but is exactly TRIPLE ‘Titanic’s’
weight!
It is like a large
Shopping Mall welded to a large Las Vegas theme Hotel,
welded to a vast boat deck and engines.
Words can’t even begin to
describe how massive she is. Restaurants
and bars everywhere, 3 swimming
pools and 6 large outside Jacuzzis, full
size casino, large cyber café,
basketball and golf ranges,
huge rock climbing walls and scuba diving schools.
A massive 3 level concert theatre, with
spectacular shows and live acts and even a huge ice skating rink etc.
The FOOD you can eat around the clock is ridiculous – all free in 10
locations. I
must have put on 5 kg in a week –
a 30 day cruise would see me explode!
At 2 am you can
phone room service for coffee, juice,
a dozen choc-chip cookies, a
hamburger, a pepperoni pizza or
two, and a tuna pita salad and a
fresh fruit plate and it arrives a few minutes afterwards with a smile.
At 3 am you can decide on seconds!
The cruise business took a huge whack after September
11.
Bookings vanished. These
big lines panicked madly, and did
not/could not cancel sail dates, but
just discounted insanely to fill them up. Which
is WHEN
I booked! $US723 including
ALL port fees, taxes and other stuff. For
a huge top deck Suite with large fridge, Queen
bed, huge bathroom,
big 4 person settee, and
nice floor to ceiling sliding glass doors and outer balcony and table etc.
The old days of tiny inside cabins with single bunk beds,
or 18” diameter outside portholes are all history now if you search for
deals on the NEW ERA super liners
on the internet. This cruise
visited Bahamas,
Puerto Rico,
Virgin Is,
and Haiti.
And on the final day steamed right along the coast of Cuba.
Enjoyed Puerto Rico
most. Took a day trip
right up high into a tropical rainforest
after an early morning walk around the very old town of San
Juan – one of the
oldest cities in the Americas – discovered and named on Columbus’ 1493
voyage.
After the cruise flew from Miami on the 9 hour flight to the massive city
Sao Paulo
in Brazil – which at 20 million has a larger population than the country of
Australia. My third visit to
Brazil at year end in past 4 years. From
Sao Paulo a flight to Iguassu
Falls and a few days at
the superbly located Das
Cataratas Hotel,
sited on the edge of
the Falls.
I’ve spent Christmas Day at this Hotel 3 times in the past 16
years and it is ALWAYS quite wonderful.
The only Hotel in the huge unpopulated Iguassu
National Park.
You hear the roar of the giant falls from your room.
I’ve visited Niagara and Victoria
Falls several times,
and even Angel Falls in Venezuela, the
world’s highest, but none come
close to the size and majesty of Iguassu. There
had been heavy rain in Brazil that week [in fact 100s died in Rio flooding] so
the water level was the highest and fastest I’ve experienced,
adding to the usual spectacular effects.
Took a day trip to the Argentinean side of the Falls on Christmas
Day.
That side is less organized and poorly accessed IMO,
but nonetheless also superb. NO
visitor to Iguassu should ever visit only one side - both are quite different.
And do take the zodiac boat ride.
There were large families of the bizarrely cute QUATI
animals running around
both sides – big things with long pointy snouts,
and long banded tails. Also
saw a lot of the magnificent Toucan
birds in the wild there
quite close – my favourite flying bird without doubt.
(But Antarctic penguins beat the lot!)
The violent riots, looting
of supermarkets, and massive
political crisis and 50% devaluation Argentina faced at that time saw me glad to
be back in Brazil!
From Iguassu a flight back to Sao Paulo,
connecting right up to the Amazon
and MANAUS.
Brazil is a quite massive country –
much larger than either the continental USA or Australia,
so that flight is a Perth - Sydney or LAX - NYC type distance.
I’ve been at different times in the past to the Amazonia regions of
Peru, Brazil,
Columbia, Venezuela and
Ecuador. Sadly Manaus has
changed little since my last visit in mid 1980s.
Still rather run down ‘Wild West’ sort of place.
Its sad, weary and basically
single landside tourist attraction is the small century old
Opera House
– a reminder of the wild and lucrative ‘Rubber Boom’ days and mucho
money. If you make the effort
to get OUT of the city and into the Amazon jungle it gets much more
interesting.
Manaus is situated on the banks of the River
Negro.
Nearly all tourists go out by boat to see the ‘meeting of the waters’
and simply go back to their hotel after that.
This natural phenomenon is where the faster flowing
‘clean’ Amazon refuses to mix with the dark
tannin stained River Negro for quite some distance,
due to greatly differing temperature and PH levels.
Looks like Neapolitan ice cream!
Do allow the extra time to go more into the Amazon
jungle area.
Walks through the rain forest are fascinating,
to see massive trees, the
giant Victoria Lily pads, and
swamps full of aggressive big Caymans. [Alligators.]
Took a beat-up old trawler into the Amazon with a gung-ho ‘Crocodile
Dundee’ sort of local
guide. He was happy to jump into
the lagoons at night wrestling Caymans after spotlighting their eyes etc.
Visited Indian villages, saw
3 toed sloths, macaws and
anacondas, and took a canoe ride
for a few hours to go fish for PIRANHAS.
Caught quite a few [and a lot of catfish.]
An old Indian lady battered and fan fried a few bigger ones,
and they were yummy.
I’ve caught Piranha before,
and no skill is needed at all, but
watch out for those razor sharp teeth.
Just a wobbly pole, 2 metres
of fixed line, a hook and any kind
of fish or meat pushed onto the hook, and
you are Rex
Hunt
in moments. Piranhas start
nibbling madly as the hook enters the water!
Really great fun. The mad
guide took a long swim in the exact spot where I was hauling in Piranhas.
He was truly
nuts!
From Manaus a 2am (!) flight to Sao Paulo,
then to Rio De
Janiero.
Have visited here several times before,
and it simply is the prettiest major city on earth.
So green, with lovely attractive peaks & mountains in the city
centre. The Brazilian Real is still
very weak too, so things are cheap.
The 1 hour brand new air conditioned bus ride from the It’l
airport (GIG) in airline type seats costs
just $US1½.
It
is truly a de facto city tour taking you right through Downtown,
and via Santos Dumont city airport,
and drops you literally at front door of your Copacabana or Ipanema
beachfront hotel. The best value
airport bus service on earth.
All Hotels in Copacabana or Ipanema with beach views cost about FOUR
times usual rates for NYE.
Literally. No deals,
no upgrades, no favours,
no exceptions. MINIMUM
3
or 4 night booking, paid up-front,
and totally non-refundable for ANY reason whatever.
I spent last NYE here, and
loved it so much decided to return. My
advice is to ONLY book something along Ave Atlantica with a beach view.
Yes it costs – but an inside room,
or a place a block or 3 back is simply NOT
’being there’. Copacabana
Beach is a living, pulsating,
exciting place for 24 hours a day.
Experiencing NYE there is a ‘must
do before I die’
essential if you like adventure destinations.
Nearly everyone, [me
included] dressed entirely in white. White
top, white pants, white shoes.
On the naturally dark skinned tanned local ‘cariocas’ this looks
superb. On pasty skinned
Stevo this is not so great a look! Fireworks
and craziness everywhere. Another
tradition is to toss long stem lilies and roses into the sea all day as an
offering to some Saint, and 1000s
are floating about in the surf. Went
with some flyer friends in the afternoon to a Porcão,
at Ipanema - the traditional
Brazilian meat BBQ feast. Waiters
keep besieging you with steaming skewered cooked meat of all kinds and sausages
- until you explode. Takes
HOURS to get through it all. One
fixed price – a great experience.
New Year’s Eve in Rio
is renowned for its fireworks. Two
MILLION people
gather along the sands of Copacabana Beach at midnight.
Another flyer friend invited me to his top floor apartment right next to
the fabled Copacabana Palace to see in the New Year.
The N.Y.E. 2000 [and the years before] fireworks were fired directly
upwards from the sands the 2 million folks stood upon,
and exploded right over your head. I
gotta tell you last year was the most
astounding NYE experience
I ever sat through, and I’ve experienced NYE in 30 top places worldwide.
Fully 30 minutes of it non-stop.
Sadly whilst very visually striking this dangerous practice literally
killed people and seriously injured dozens more each year.
Missing eyes, severe burns
– that kind of thing. So for
December 31, 2001 the City Fathers decided to launch fireworks from barges
moored in the pretty horseshoe shaped harbour.
Some massive cruise liners anchored nearby.
Millions of folks on the beach watched on but it was not quite the same.
From my very elevated panoramic viewpoint it was quite spectacular,
but those down on the sand disagreed.
Huge negative feedback. The
next day the Tourism Minister concurred and in future promised twice as many
barges, twice as many fireworks,
and all a lot closer to shore.
So book NOW for
January 31,
2002 is
my sincere advice! (Hey – I may
even see you there!)
No
trip to Rio is complete without a trip up the 2 long cable car rides to the very
summit of the ‘Sugar
Loaf’ [Pão
de Açúcar] almost in
the city centre. From there
you see Copacabana Beach, the
wonderfully located Santos Dumont city airport,
and the ‘Christ The Redeemer’ Corcodovo massive statue etc, etc.
A truly super vista. All
only a $A1 public bus ride from your Hotel plus modest entry fee.
(So do NOT
book a $US40 p/p ‘guided tour’ as most first time visitors do – ditto for
Corcodovo!) I guarantee you,
Rio has more public buses, more
often, than ANY other city on earth
– no contest. One I was in had a
nasty smash with another. Ride as
long as you like for US50¢. A
bargain – there are no sectors – 50¢ for 100 metres, or 50¢ for 10 miles!
The insane hotel rates at NYE aside,
food and drink in Rio is ridiculously cheap at all times – even then.
You can sit at an elegant Copacabana beachfront outdoor café/restaurant,
served by white jacketed olde-world waiters,
and watch the AMAZING
passing parade of barely
clad bodies, buskers and persistent
hucksters all within arms reach etc. All
this whilst sipping an ice-cold ‘Antarctica’
beer costs less
than $US1 including service charges.
A light meal there costs a few $ more.
Quite an experience to while away the hours,
and you’ll find this possible nowhere else near so inexpensively at a
#1 tourist site. From Rio flew down
to Porto Alegre, way down
south of Brazil near the Uruguay border. This
is a very clean, very pleasant
University/Business city. Stayed
in the just completed Sheraton – really
superb. Better than you’d find
anywhere in the USA. Took a cruise
through all the wooded islands at their front door –
it claims to be the ‘greenest’ city in Brazil – I can believe that.
Back to Sao Paulo, then
catch the long flight to Miami,
and endure the INSANE
USA customs and security lines there. Airport
security in the USA some 4 months after 9/11 gets dumber and slower,
not smarter. They X-Ray
shoes, and confiscate nail clippers
and eyebrow tweezers.
All painfully slowly. But
on domestic flights do not positive match your checked SUITCASE which for all
they know contains 20 kg of semtex and an altimeter fuse set for 1,000 metres.
A terrorist would not even have to board a flight.
Bin Laden is history, lets
wise up and move on. He and
his kind have been dealt a deadly response,
but it is over now. Those
squads of dorky looking National guardsmen in head-to-toe jungle camouflage
uniforms clutching loaded heavy assault rifles at all
airports makes me feel I am in Laos, Cuba
or Zaire
etc. Not in the
alleged: ‘land
of the free’.
And I am not exaggerating – between Sept 11 and Feb 17
I will have flown over 90,000
air miles on USA
airlines, so am in a VERY informed
position to comment. The USA should
go back to pre 9/11 ‘normal’ security and stop being so paranoid.
Flying anywhere in the USA is a MAJOR pain in the neck process for
everyone right now, and yet is no
safer than before. Despite this new
insanity, during January three
US based X-Rays failed
to detect a Swiss Army knife left inadvertently in a carry-on from Brazil.
Flying is now, and has
ALWAYS been a LOT safer
than the cab ride to the airport. Think
about it. And every USA
highway, every minute of every day
has guys with zero background checks driving huge Mack trucks hauling a zillion
gallons of propane or
gasoline etc,
at 75 mph.
No-one seems to have considered one of these driven head first into a key
building will be W.T.C. Mark #2, and
worse, no-one seems to care,
but they still want to take my stamp tweezers off me under armed guard.
Back to Miami then a 5
hour flight to Los Angeles,
and a $US28 night Suite at the Sheraton LAX,
to sleep for 5 hours, then
board the 14½ hour flight back home. ANYONE
who wants to know how to book $US30 type Hilton/Sheraton/Marriott/Hyatt rooms in
ANY US/Canada/Aust/Europe city at anytime please contact me.
I save about $2,000 a year via this simple method.
It will cost you a bottle of nice champagne though!
Back to the usual mountain of faxes,
letters and phone messages. There
were way over 1,200 emails – the majority ‘Spam’ but still a lot of legit
messages to attend to. My Latest
list J - 1 is
loaded up now on www.GlenStephens.com/J-1.html
- please go check it out. My
Mastercard account now looks like the Cambodian GNP figure!
Cheers
… Glen. January,
2001.
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