7 Reasons

Tag: tango

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Take A Cruise To South America

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Take A Cruise To South America

    Cruises aren’t just for oldies with a lust for tea-dancing. Oh no. They are – believe it or not – getting cooler. And part of it is about the destinations. You don’t have to go to Malta anymore to sit on a dinky balcony and turn your skin to leather. You don’t even have to don a sparkly kaftan or a pair of Speedos to wade the waters of the Caribbean while local kids try to flog you miniature bongo drums.

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Take A Cruise To South America

    So without further ado, here are seven reasons why a cruise to achingly hip South America is the thing to do:

    1. You’ll see lots of boobies. Wait, now don’t get too excited. I’m talking about blue-footed boobies – a type of bird with sky blue feet which lives all over the Galapagos Islands. Choose the right time of year to go and you’ll see them doing the dance moves of their courtship dance – quite an amusing spectacle.

    2. Sweat it out in the Amazon. Take a river cruise down the planet’s biggest river and you’ll really learn what it means to sweat. Even if you’re a gym regular, or a Bikram yoga fan, you’ll reach new heights of perspiration in this equatorial region. When you’re not wiping your brow, you’ll see chattering monkeys and native villages, and maybe even fish for piranhas.

    3. Get the Horn. Some itineraries sail all the way under Cape Horn – the furthest south point in Chile. Early round-the-world sailors had to take this route before the Panama Canal was built. It’s pretty spectacular: glaciers, fjords, whales, penguins and condors will guide your way. Just keep an eye out for icebergs, eh?

    4. Get high. Bolivian drug dens aside, there is plenty of stuff to get you high – quite literally – in South America. Choose cultural cruise which drops you off on the Peruvian coastline for an inland trip to the Lost City of Machu Picchu. Here, nearly 2,500 metres above sea level, you’ll have shortness of breath from both the altitude and the view. Chill out back at the beach with a few Pisco Sours before moving on.

    5. Spy on supermodels. Ah, Brazil. Forget about feeling insecure in your frumpy on-piece and do what every other tourist does: find a prime viewing spot on Copacabana and watch the local ladies and gents play a hot and sweaty game of beach volleyball. It’s a beautiful thing. The teeny bikinis, the even smaller trunks, the toned, tanned flesh… these people really know how to look gorgeous, and they are used to being stared at.

    6. Tango in Buenos Aires. The capital of Argentina is a city that keeps on giving. The locals will teach you how to stay up all night and then go straight to work for the day, and they’ll laugh it off when you ask them why the country has the highest number of psychiatrists per capita. Let them teach you to tango and you’ll be made an absolute fool of – but that’s half the fun. Knock back the red wine and get on with it. If you can get into a tangle with a luscious local, all the better!

    7. Gurn at giant tortoises. The Galapagos Islands, as we’ve already seen, have such amusing animals as the blue-footed booby. But the giant tortoises take the trophy for oddest animal. These wrinkled old things staggering about the Darwin Research Centre look a lot like a bunch of retirees on an outing. Expressive and painfully slow, copy their gurning for some holiday photos you will want to frame and hang in the living room.

    Article courtesy of Exsus South America

  • 7 Reasons not to Dance

    7 Reasons not to Dance

    drunk-dance-fail1

    1.  Marital Disharmony. In the Edwardian era, dancing was a gentle affair and the worst thing that could happen while dancing with your wife was that you might tread on her foot.  This may have led to some resentment, but nothing that would distract a man from guzzling brandy and smoking cigars in his library or waxing his moustache in the bathroom.  Modern dancing, however, is less well structured and far more vigorous.  These days, when dancing after a sherry or two, it’s all too easy to inadvertently stumble and face-plant your partner onto the dance-floor.  This can lead to months of tutting, silences and chores that urgently need doing on a Saturday afternoon.

    2.  Deviance. George Bernard Shaw said that dancing is the “…vertical expression of a horizontal desire.”  This is a fair statement.  Salsa dancing and the Tango, for example, have a degree of eroticism that would seem to indicate carnal intent.  What though, should we make of Riverdance?  What could the stiff, immobile arms and motionless head, neck and upper torso in combination with the preposterous, maniacally-flailing leg movements of Riverdancers indicate that they want to do in the bedroom?  Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want to hear it through the wall either.

    3.  Death. Ah, the Tango; that moody dance from Argentina; so sensual, so visually arresting and so beloved of film-makers.  If you meet a lusty, long-limbed, raven-haired, wild-eyed beauty, under no circumstance should you dance the Tango with him/her because, as we have learned from Hollywood movies, you will die.  It’s one of the rules of cinema that if you dance the Tango in a film you will be stabbed or shot by your partner’s jealous lover/former lover, usually in an alley outside a Buenos Aires dance hall.

    dance-steps

    4.  Geography. This is a map of where your feet need to be when dancing.  If you don’t understand this diagram (and I think that’s all of us) you shouldn’t be dancing.  Who knows what could happen or where you might end up?  If you do understand this diagram then your chances of meeting a dance partner are negligible, by the way.

    5.  Strictly No Dancing. Ballroom dancing is a great reason not to dance.  If you have no desire to paint yourself orange and dress in tight, sequinned, garishly-hued, puff-sleeved creations (the ladies outfits are even more preposterous) and twirl around with your teeth clenched then you should avoid ballroom dancing at all costs.  Not ballroom dancing also minimises your risk of having to go to Blackpool.

    6.  Boycott. One of my local bars has a sign that says “Do not take  lasses onto the dance floor”.  There’s no way you should go and dance without taking your lass, so we boycott dancing at this venue.

    7.  Weddings. If there is an occasion that you shouldn’t dance at it’s a wedding.  If you do anything freakish or memorable on the dance floor in front of the friends and family that you rarely see, you will forever be defined by it, as witnessing whatever it was that you did on the dance floor will be your extended family’s shared experience of you.  They will bring it up at every social occasion you attend from that moment on, and if you don’t believe me, ask Sweaty Uncle Richard.