Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

August 26, 2010 By Remy Leave a Comment

Next-door neighbor to both Iraq and Iran, Kuwait is in a volatile part of the world.  But in the decades since Iraq’s invasion, Kuwait has prospered off of a steady stream of oil revenue.  Today, the country is something of a contradiction:  A conservative Muslim state where Sharia law prevails and a consumer-oriented society where lavish wealth has encouraged lots and lots of shopping.  I visited Kuwait recently and spent some time in the country’s largest mall.  I wrote about my experiences for National Geographic Traveler.

Million-Dollar Shopping Zone

By Remy Scalza; Special to National Geographic Traveler

Just beyond the gleaming new subdivisions built in the desert, it rises – glorious and shimmering – in the Kuwaiti heat.

With 250 stores covering 2.5 million square feet, The Avenues is neither mosque nor desert palace but Kuwait’s largest shopping mall, a temple to the cult of consumerism.  I’ve come to be initiated.

Read more . . . .

Filed Under Published Articles Tagged With Kuwait, National Geographic Traveler, Remy Scalza

Water into Wine: Drought in Canada’s Wine Country

August 7, 2010 By Remy Leave a Comment


Photo: Remy Scalza


The Okanagan wine country in western Canada is an amazing success story.  Twenty-five years ago, nobody had heard of the place and the only wine being made there was barely drinkable plonk.  Today, it’s one of North America’s most promising wine regions, lauded by The New York Times as the “Napa of the North.”  But behind the beautiful countryside and increasingly impressive wines is a big problem: lack of water.  Much of the South Okanagan is desert, and the demands of agriculture and a new wave of wine tourism have stretched limited water resources nearly to the breaking point.  I wrote about the region’s water problems and growing pains in a recent article for BCBusiness, a magazine based in Vancouver.

Tourism Threatens Water Security in the Okanagan

By Remy Scalza for BCBusiness Magazine

In the bone-dry southern tip of the Okanagan Valley, just outside the town of Osoyoos, a network of footpaths winds through thickets of sage and antelope brush. Braving the midday sun, a few hardy hikers – red-faced and sweating – push down the trail, leaving faint footprints in the sand and keeping an eye out for the rattlesnakes that make their home here, in Canada’s only desert.

What awaits around the final turn in the trail must first seem illusion, a trick played on the eyes by the shimmering South Okanagan heat. Abruptly, brush gives way. Neat rows of vines rise from the desert floor, leaves interlacing into a vast and improbable tapestry of green.

Here the path dead ends, sparse foot traffic giving way to the steady pulse of people and cars in the parking lot of Spirit Ridge Vineyard and Resort, one of a wave of new wineries and resorts to open in the South Okanagan in the last five years. In shorts and visors, visitors by the mini-busload spill into the wine shop, restaurant and wellness spa. Out back small children throng an oasis of pools, while duffers hack away on the Technicolor greens of a nine-hole course edged by sand and sagebrush just beyond. Surrounding it all, running right up to the 226 desert suites and vineyard villas at the sprawling resort, are grape vines: Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Merlot, ripening in the summer sun.

Click here to read the full article on BCBusinessOnline.ca.

Filed Under Food & Wine, Published Articles, Vancouver Tagged With BCBusiness, drought, okanagan, Remy Scalza, shortage, South Okanagan, tourism, water, wine country

Brazil’s Backyard Jungle

July 19, 2010 By Remy Leave a Comment

Pretty much everyone knows that Brazil is home to the Amazon jungle: one of the wildest and most biodiverse places on the planet.  But Brazil also has another jungle: the mata or Atlantic rain forest.  And, in contrast to the Amazon – which is hard to get to and tends to attract mainly hardcore adventure types – the mata is right next door to some of Brazil’s biggest cities – Rio and Sao Paulo.  For travelers who might not have the budget or inclination to see the Amazon, the mata offers a unique glimpse of real jungle – howler monkeys, toucans, isolated and unsettled beaches, dense old growth forest.   Plus, you’re never far from a clean bed, a nice restaurant and a cold caiparinha.  I wrote about some recent experiences in the mata for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Brazil’s backyard jungle a rugged, restful strip

Remy Scalza, Special to The Chronicle

Sunday, July 18, 2010

In downtown Rio de Janeiro, in the shadow of one of the city’s most famous landmarks, concrete jungle meets the real thing.

Just past the double-decker tour buses and cable cars that zip up Sugar Loaf, Rio’s granite dome, an inconspicuous footpath makes a beeline into thick forest. Winding past trees draped with vines and clinging plants, I climb higher and higher above the city. At one turn, micos – tiny monkeys with pinched-up faces – glare from a tangle of treetops.

Though the Amazon gets most of the press, Brazil is also home to another jungle: the Mata, or Atlantic rain forest. Defiantly wild – with biodiversity levels rivaling the Amazon’s – the Mata surrounds Rio and Sao Paulo, stretching in a thin strip all along Brazil’s central coast.

For travelers like me – nature lovers but not full-blown “Survivor” men – this translates into a unique one-two punch. Choose your trails right, and you can start the day tramping through protected Mata in the company of toucans and howler monkeys and finish it sipping caipirinhas on the beach with Brazil’s buff and beautiful.

Click here for the full article at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Filed Under Published Articles Tagged With Atlantic, Ilha Grande, mata, Paraty, rain forest, rainforest, Remy Scalza, San Francisco Chronicle

Mudslide Buries Vineyards in Western Canada

June 18, 2010 By Remy Leave a Comment

The Okanagan Valley has been called a Canadian Garden of Eden.  Wedged between two mighty mountain ranges, the valley is dominated by glacial lakes and sprawling vineyards and orchards.   Balmy summer temperatures have drawn growing numbers of wine tourists in recent years, and Okanagan wineries have garnered recognition from Conde Nast and other authorities as among the best in North America.  A freak mudslide devastated a corner of the Okanagan last week, after a ruptured dam spilled tons of water and debris onto prime farmland.  I reported on the disaster for Wine Spectator.

Mudslide Buries Okanagan Vineyards

Debris buries 40 acres of vines in British Columbia; dam failed

Remy Scalza
Posted: June 18, 2010

A dam failure triggered a massive mudslide in western Canada’s Okanagan wine country this past week, burying approximately 40 acres of vineyards and orchards under soil, rocks and debris, in some spots up to 25 feet deep. The slide destroyed five homes and blocked the region’s main highway. Although no one was injured, property damages are estimated to be in the millions of dollars, and affected vintners and residents are now asking if the disaster could have been averted.

“My Chardonnay is under five feet of mud. You can’t even see the top of the plants,” said Rasoul Salehi, executive director of Enotecca Winery and Resorts, which manages the LaStella and Le Vieux Pin wineries. Enotecca’s vineyard in the Okanagan’s acclaimed Golden Mile grapegrowing zone was among the worst hit. The mud destroyed 3 acres of Moscato Bianco and Chardonnay vines, including some of the oldest vines in the valley, as well as winemaking equipment, vehicles and an outbuilding.

Click here to read the full article on Wine Spectator.

Filed Under Food & Wine, Published Articles Tagged With mudslide, okanagan, wine

The Greening of the Yucatan

May 26, 2010 By Remy Leave a Comment

Cancun has never been high on my list of travel destinations.  The setting for countless Girls Gone Wild videos, the city always seemed to me like a seaside Vegas – tawdry, artificial, dependent for its survival on a steady stream of spring breakers and package holiday buyers wooed by the promise of white sand and an endless supply of $2 margaritas.  But I was surprised to discover that just south of Cancun, along the less developed Riviera Maya, the region’s natural and cultural beauty endures.  I wrote about crumbling pyramids, Mayan rites and oceanfront nature reserves for the Canadian magazine alive.

The Greening of the Yucatan

Remy Scalza; Special to alive

They’re knee-high, bad-tempered, and given to mischief. Aluxes—think leprechauns with a tan—are the jungle spirits of Maya lore. And, for better or worse, I’m poised at their front door, peering into the inky black of a Mexican cave with a local eco-guide and 12 other travellers.

A Maya shaman, dressed in white and carrying a smoking chalice filled with sacred incense, offers up a blessing for the group. We’re about to descend into a cenote, one of the underground caverns that riddle the soft limestone bedrock here in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Purified, protected from the aluxes—we hope—we file down into the dark, heading for a crystalline pool that beckons from the depths of the cave.

Click here for the full article on alive.

Filed Under Published Articles Tagged With alive, cenotes, Mayakoba, Riviera Maya
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