By Vivienne Stanton
A word used again and again to describe the Jewish community in Mexico to me as I researched this story was cerrada—closed. “Wealthy” was another. “They live in Polanco,” one taxi driver told me knowingly, speaking of the swanky Mexico City neighborhood where Orthodox Jews in black hats share park space with manicured Mexican mommies and synagogues share blocks with high-rise hotels and Hummer dealerships. “They… Read more
(Published in The West Australian Weekend Magazine, 3 May 2008)
By Vivienne Stanton
It’s 8am on a cool, late-winter morning, and we’re in the middle of a wooded mountainside in the central Mexican highlands, hunting butterflies. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. Each year, up to 250 million of the bright orange insects—dubbed the Elvis of butterflies, for their flashy, patterned wings—arrive here en… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton
(Published in The West Australian Weekend Magazine, 29 March, 2008)
“The Bluuuuue Pannnnnnntheeeeeeeer,” yells the tenor-voiced announcer, “in dannnnnnger of extiiiiinnnnnnction!”
I’m in the Arena Mexico, drinking Corona from a paper cup and ducking, as potato chips fly over my head. Fans beat the rails and launch popcorn into the air. Lights flash. An 80s Rock Ballad blares from the sound system. The 16,500-seat stadium is jumping. … Read more
OVER a century ago, a few hundred disgruntled shearers, stockmen, poets and dreamers left Australia in search of Paradise in the small, green, landlocked South American nation of Paraguay. Their dream: to build a socialist Utopia based on the twin ideals of temperance and mateship—a “New Australia”—under the guidance of zealous labour leader, William Lane.
It failed spectacularly. Before they even set foot in their new home, the dreamers… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton and Temoris Grecko
(Published in National Geographic Traveler, Latin America, in April 2009.)
We’re driving down Cerrillos Road, a six-mile strip of hotels, motels and fast food restaurants, and we’re getting desperate. We’ve rejected two motels already (one smells like eggs, the other stale cigarettes), and many have rejected us, already full for the night. We bump into fellow travelers at each stop. We eye each… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton
(Published in National Geographic Traveler Latin America, June 2009)
In La Habana Vieja, a blind man sings songs in a beautiful voice outside the Bodegita del Medio, Hemingway’s old haunt, while tourists pose with Che Gueverra berets and fat cigars, and street hustlers shout offers of everything from cheap Cohibas to cheap women. Growth in tourism – now Cuba’s second-biggest foreign dollar earner – has had… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton
(Published in National Geographic Traveler, December 2008)
The bar was small and empty, the beer cool and delicious, the night air sweet and sticky with the scent of the tropics, and the Caribbean. The thief’s weapon was modern—not a knife, but a mobile phone. As he entered the bar, he pretended to drop it near our table. I bent to pick it up. He whisked the… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton
(Published in Life & Style, 2008)
HOPE Street, Perth, is a quiet lane in the back streets behind the Western Australian capital’s nightlife district: a compact, three-square-kilometre rectangle of Asian restaurants, Indian supermarkets, Italian cafes, kebab shops, sushi stalls, sex shops, Karaoke bars and backpacker hostels, doing their best to shake the city’s—my hometown—reputation as “Dullsville”. On any given Saturday, you’ll find backpackers stumbling out of… Read more
By Vivienne Stanton
(Published in Australian Gourmet Traveller, December 2009)
From the air, the world seems to fit within a single, sprawling eyeful. Patterns, unseen from the ground, reveal themselves. You are not an ant, crawling through dusty crevices, but an osprey, an eagle, a broad-winged sea bird, flying high in the sky.
Or so it seems, from the porthole of our Beechcraft King Air twin-engine turboprop jet: a… Read more