SWERVE TRAVEL LISTINGS

BLUE CRUSH: RIPPIN IT UP FROM PERU TO TOFINO AND EVERY WAVE IN BETWEEN.

HIGH LIFE: Hotel los Delfines, Lima, Peru. Sure it’s in San Isidro, the city’s ritzy financial district, but that doesn’t mean surfers can’t stay here. After all, if dolphins are welcome—the hotel is named after them and includes a dolphinarium with two residents—how can they turn away humans in flip-flops? Rooms start at $450 but why not splash out on the Suite Olimpo, which runs $2,145 (US) a night? It includes a sauna and Jacuzzi, both of which might come in handy after a day in the waves. You’ll find those off one of the many beaches just outside Lima. In fact, the range of options might leave you wanting a break. Those who want a little turf with their surf will be happy to know Los Delfines overlooks a golf course. Visit losdelfineshotel.com for reservations and more info.

MIDDLE GROUND: Surf Diva, La Jolla, California. Back in 1996, twin sisters Isabelle and Caroline Tihanyi started their school and began introducing women to the waves. Surfers know the two as Izzy and Coco, and Surf Diva as the place to get their feet wet and hone their skills. This summer’s offerings range from two-day weekend clinics to an overnight camp or, as it’s known at Surf Diva, Boarding School (get it?). Clinics offer four hours of instruction per day and cost $135. The weeklong camps (there are some for teens and some for adults) are $1,485 and include accommodation at the University of California, San Diego, meals and transportation to the beach in Surf Diva’s eye-catching pink Betty Bus. Visit surfdiva.com for more information.

BUDGET CONSCIOUS: Green Point Campground, Pacific Rim National Park. There are more luxe ways to do a surfing vacation on Vancouver Island (pay up to $975 per night for the Canopy Room at the Wickaninnish Inn; wickinn.com) but if it’s a salty beach holiday you’re after, there’s nothing better (or less expensive) than waking up to the sound of waves crashing outside your tent. Cox Bay, Long Beach and South Chesterman, while not as balmy as, say, Maui get fairly impressive swells (six-feet plus) and the hot-blooded can rip it up every day year round. Visit gotofino.com for up-to-date wave reports. To book a campsite at Green Point (the only provincial campground in the area), situated midway between Tofino and Ucluelet, visit pccamping.ca. Pack a wetsuit—yes, even in July.

HONEYMOONING IN GEORGIA

by Marcello di Cintio

Moonira and I learned only one word in Georgian during our visit to the ex-Soviet Republic: taplobistvay. The word means “honeymoon” and, as it turned out, it was the only word we ever needed to know.
The Georgians are a cheerful lot who need little incentive to make merry. The arrival of the morning sun seems all the occasion necessary to drain a bottle of vodka or a jug of the saperavi wine for which Georgia is famous. (Sadly, saperavi is cloying and sweet and about as palatable to western tastes as Georgia’s other famous export, Josef Stalin.) The Georgian arsenal of mirth is always on a hair-trigger, so when two foreigners on their honeymoon show up and mutter taplobistvay in a Canadian accent, things tend to get out of hand.
This happened for the first time in a minibus at the foot of Mount Kazbek, a peak whose profile we got to know well since it adorns the label on the country’s most popular beer. As we waited for the bus to depart for the capital, we mentioned to a man in the bus that we were on our taplobistvay. He left the bus immediately and walked to one of the tiny stalls nearby that sold cheap booze, chocolate bars, chewing gum, sausage links, and hanging bouquets of dried fish. He came back with a bottle of red wine. At his urging, and in honour of our recent union, we guzzled back cup after plastic cup until the bottle was empty. It was nine in the morning.
There were many moments like this, but our favourite taplobistvay-inspired mischief came on our last night in Tbilisi, Georgia’s faded capital city. Moonira and I were searching for a restaurant in the Old Town, but the few restaurants recommended to us were all empty and we were tired of solitary dining. We found a beer hall near the banks of the Mtkvari River. It was filled with noisy men drinking at long wooden tables. Stuffed animal heads adorned the walls. It was not the sort of place Moonira and I imagined for our last Tbilisi dinner, but at least the place was alive.

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THIS ONE TIME? IN HO CHI MINH CITY?

Travel to exotic locations is fascinating—to the person who went on the trip. To the rest of us? Yawn. Is the slide show over yet?

By Steve Burgess

The funniest thing happened today. I was shaving and my can of shave gel was almost out so I started to toss it. Then I realized it was the very can I bought a couple of summers ago on the day I arrived on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, only to discover that I had left my toiletries in Rome. So I had been forced to meander down the narrow shoulder of a twisting coastal road to a tiny little store run by an old lady who lived behind the store, then tiptoe back keeping my eyes peeled for buses swinging around those impossibly tight corners. Ah, what a can of shave gel it was.

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