While billionaires may be getting kicked off the coast in Italy, a new playground is popping up for them in Nigeria. Turns out that Lagos is even more pricey than LA and DC, though it hasn't yet hit Moscow levels of decadence. The New York Times has a sampling of prices you can expect to pay:
Dinner for two at an average restaurant costs more than $200. A cocktail costs more than $15. A box of cereal costs $12 at a supermarket. Hotel rooms under $400 are difficult to find.
Of course, only an elite few in the capital can afford those things, but that doesn't keep oil executives and money managers from popping Dom and partying all night on yachts. While the average Nigerian earns less than $2 a day, kids in the capital try to catch just a sliver of the city's new wealth, hawking gum and phone cards to the superrich as they spill out of clubs.
Hey, did you hear about all the great coke in Colombia? It's becoming the point of trips to the country rather than a sideline, says The Guardian:
It's hardly shocking that some travellers in Colombia can't resist trying the country's most famous product, but it seems the drug is becoming a tourist attraction in itself. Just as you try steak in Argentina and caipirinhas in Brazil; in Colombia, you sample the coke.
Backpackers are doing lines in their dorms, signing up to visit cocaine factories and word is going round that somewhere in San Augustin lies a place where you can make your own.
Oh, there are just so many! But we have to give this year's award to the New York Times, which also takes an honorable mention.
The worst story of the year was "Colombian Gold in Cartagena", from the NYT's T Magazine. Basically, the story goes, the city has plenty happening besides coke-fueled parties. So why the constant discussion of drugs, the cocaine-focused rhetoric of a government official and the interviews with "sophistonauts" who get wasted, dance all night and recover on the beach? With airlines competing to expand service to the country, and a tourism boom brewing, Colombia deserves so much more than this.
Running close behind "Colombian Gold" was "Attracted by a Blend of Centuries and Cultures" from the NYT's travel section. It's not that Jeff Koyen did a bad job on the story about Grenada, Nicaragua. It's just that we'd read it all before. How can the Times avoid this prize again next year? Less coverage of phony trends and more Matt Gross!
We don't normally look forward to the New York Times'T Magazine, mostly because it's full of dubious trends and phrases like "Moscow is the new Dallas". But we were pleasantly surprised with the most recent issue, which arrived on newsstands yesterday.
David Amsden brings a pleasantly bemused demeanor to his one-year wandering of the global art circuit, drifting from Miami Beach to Venice to Kassel, Germany. He loves the art and the destinations, but can't get a grip on what drives the super-rich party people who visit fairs that have cropped up from Havana to Moscow:
It's a bit dizzying to process, this semi-oxymoronic notion that you can now attend multiple biennials annually.
Also in the running for best article this issue is a look at Los Roques, the Venezuelan archipelago that's long been a popular vacation spot for Italians. Mike Albo travels to the islands with his "bottle-blond knockout" friend Cary for a week of relaxation--and carousing:
On our second night, there was a Butt Shaking Contest...Cary entered the contest. Cary wore a miniskirt with no underwear. Cary won two cases of Polar beer.
But for all the good stuff, this is still T Magazine. Page 27 has your "___ is the new ___" listings. Ice fishing is the new snowshoeing? We know!
What's with travel media and "X is the new Y?" Public enemy number one when it comes to the reductionist formulation would have to be the New York Times, which has another new Prague this week: Krakow, Poland.
Writer Denny Lee (turns out Denny is a good photographer as well) has some "fresh" "intelligence" from those who know the city best: a bunch of self-described bohemians. (We're suspicious.) Here's what a dozen expats got up to last October:
The group chatted about their creative endeavors as they polished off six-packs of Tatra Pilsener, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and, at one point, began scrawling existential messages on the walls. Then, at about midnight, they headed off to Kitsch, a multilevel pansexual club on Ulica Wielopole, where they danced until the wee hours.
The latest issue of the New York Times Style magazine dropped this Sunday, and we dug in to find out where the beautiful people are maxing and relaxing these days. Turns out Cartagena is the newest hot spot for:
'sophistonauts' -- those wide-roaming urban nomads, often third-culture kids, expats or grown-up diplo-brats who tend to live outside their countries (plural!) of citizenship and bounce around a social web connecting them to equally geographically flexible, curious confreres
Pardon us while we stop laughing over this contrived trend. Now, we'll give some credit to Tim Parsa, who fancifully discusses Cartagena's past as a slave-trading center. He even talks to the mayor's press attache, who rips out some choice anti-U.S. government rhetoric: "You gringos give us these narco-problems because you love our cocaine."
Guess that explains all "sophistonauts" we meet in the article. There's the half-French, half-Mexican party princess from Buenos Aires. There's her friend, the Colombian who gets wasted, dances all night and hangs on the beach. And don't forget the Swiss-Mexican photographer who thinks the city's beyond chic.
Just remember, none of them are there for the Colombian Marching Powder--"cheap, pure and easy to procure." Got it?
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by pbb
