Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the state capital of Chiapas, is not one of Mexico’s great colonial cities loaded with old-style charm and historic architecture, traditional images to provide an irresistible draw to tourists – much to its regret. Every so often, Chiapas’ politicians and state officials – nearly all of whom live in Tuxtla – express a vague annoyance […]
Catch Cuba while it’s still there, people say… Get a taste of the island and its revolutionary quirks before the opening-up of relations with the USA sweeps all its strange tropical-Soviet otherworldliness away, and it becomes just like any other country, like… (what? In this part of the world, maybe, the Dominican Republic, that shining success story). Cuba […]
Mexico is a paradoxical country, where people can at times be brusque, sharp, smart-alecky, but more often show an elaborate, amiable courtesy. México es un país paradójico, donde la gente a veces puede ser brusca, acérbica, listilla, pero más a menudo te tratan con una cortesía elaborada. In the Colonia Condesa, a district […]
Es como París… It’s like Paris… I first heard this from an Argentinian about Buenos Aires years ago, long before I ever had the chance to go there. And it’s odd to see, now that I have been, how often Argentinians in general and Porteños, Buenos Aires natives, in particular still bring up this old image […]
Went to Manchester a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in years. And I was amazed: what’s amazing is just how new so much of it is, and how shiny new its new bits are. Go to Salford Quays (OK, not technically Manchester, but obviously part of the same entity) and you enter […]
Al Pacino has a store on Hornsey High Street in north London, N8. It says so on the sign, with a little image of Al in Scarface mode. The owner, who’s Turkish, says he got the shop off his cousin, who’s a friend of a cousin of Al’s who still lives in Italy. And that […]
It’s surprising to find that Santiago, capital of Chile (not de Cuba or de Compostela), can look a little forbidding at first sight, at least if you head straight for the centre. The presidential seat the Palacio de la Moneda, a neatly-proportioned neo-classical mansion typical of the last burst of building of the Spanish Empire […]
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