Travel Questions
 

It is time to once again dip the ladle into the knowledge stew we know as the cellar.

for work i get an all expenses paid trip and i've got choices.

i'm pretty sure my 1st choice is an 8day/7night meditteranean cruise. spain/italy/france/spain. there is a strong chance that there may not be enough slots open for me to get on that one though.

so i've got other options and am looking for input if you've been to any of these places, since i know nothing about them.

A) Turks & Caicos - ( i guess with this one, even your drinks are included)
B) Costa Rica -
C) someplace in the British virgin Islands
D) Bahamas
E) a week in Paris. for some reason, i'm really not that interested in this one.

in each case it is all expenses paid and they are all @6 days, same level of resort, etc... so none of the options has the lead in that way. anybody have ideas?

A guy I work with took his girlfriend down to Costa Rica. They had a great time, but she came back with some kind of parasite. She had worms between her skull and scalp. :vomit: After several doctors, they figured out how to get them out. Shave her head. Lay raw bacon over the entrance wounds (yes, the worms would stick their little heads out when it was dark in her hospital room) and when they bit onto the bacon, the docs pulled them out. I don't know how many, but there were several. I will never go to Costa Rica.

Chainsaw heard that, of course, from a friend of a friend of a friend who read it on the internet.

And he left out the part where, before the worms exited, they laid EGGS which hatched 6 months later into several thousand mature Amazon worms feeding off her BRAIN and, at the height of mating season, exited the now hollowed-out cranium via her sinus cavity and out of her NOSTRILS in the middle of the night in search of more BACON and, upon not finding BACON, consumed her boyfriend's penis. Oh, and his EYEBALLS.

But I hear they are quite tasty and considered a delicacy depending on how much brain matter they consumed before exiting the various orifices.

Oh, good god!

In Africa, it is understood that maggots depend on oxygen for
survival, so anecdotal reports abound on ways to block off their
breathing hole, visible on the furuncular surface. People have
reported doing this by making a completely airtight seal for
approximately 12 hours, e.g. with chewing gum or vaseline. The
hypoxia makes the creature come near the top of the breathing hole
making skilled removal easier, (care taken not to break the creature
into parts, for the reasons already mentioned). Sometimes, people in
Africa resort to placing fatty bacon (or similar) above the furuncle
to tempt the creature out, and the more skilled among them can
facilitate this process by very judicious squeezing when they spy the
head of the maggot emerging, as it looks for food. I think this
technique might be difficult to perfect, given the advisability of not
causing the aforementioned breakage of the creature, so total
smothering of it might be the better option.

And, on that note, its time for lunch! :)

Must... resist... the urge to defend myself... Ok, I can't. I understand your skepticism. I like to think of myself as NOT gullible. I believe my co-worker only because I saw the pictures they took in the hospital AND I've met his girlfriend. But whatever! :rolleyes:

I vote for the Mediterranean cruise, by the way. Italy is fabulous. :thumbsup: And no, my opinion on Italy isn't just from watching the Travel Channel. I've actually been there myself. :D

No need - just ribbin' you. "Insect infects human" stories (many of which are urban legends) are fun to have fun with.

Well, Lookout, this thread took a quick turn for the ugly.

Bet you'll be careful of how deep you dip the ladle into the knowledge stew in the future, huh? :rolleyes:

yeah, i'm guessing there just wasn't much to be said about the available selections. i'll be more careful next time i guess.

Not as ugly as the world can get if you stray outside the resort "enclosure" in the Carib. :worried:

I don't know that I know what it is that you do for a living that FOR WORK (!) you get a AEP trip to a FUN place. So, what the heck do you do? I am assuming this is a reward for something... Since I've never been to any of those places, maybe check out your local AAA (great free resources if you or someone you know is a member) or other travel oriented place for some brochures on each of them. Depending on time of year, some places might be nicer/less crowded than others. Don't forget to take your camera, and give us a show and tell when you get back!

Well, you should check out Department of State Travel Site

Heres a note from there on Costa Rica -

Lookout---you, grrrr---damn! Whatever god/dess it is you pray to, I want to know coz you so lucky! Go to Costa Rica. It rocks.

We've already got our tickets for Costa Rica! Still working on the itinerary though.

Anyway there are these grubs that grow in cows backs, you can pinch them and pop 'em out but the elegant way is to heat up a soda bottle and put it on the cows back. bottle cools grub gets sucked out yummy

Will we have to take up a collection if you're kidnapped? :yelgreedy

Ok, bad joke, but watch yourself down there.

Once they figure out I've got nothing, we should be ok. :)

My brother was telling a story just last night about paramilitaries stopping the bus he was in to search for weapons. His bag was the last one checked. He wasn't packing, a gun anyway, and they didn't notice or maybe care what else was in the bag. :cool: I think it was Bolivia. He described the guy searching his bag as an enormous black man with jaunticed eyes and knee high leather boots... whitey was scared.

Bahamas are gorgeous

I vote for the spain/italy/france/spain trip, because I love europe, but barring that, I'd pick C, British Virgin Islands. They speak the language, sparkling white sand beaches, great food and drinks drinks drinks.

i've got a shot at these choices twice a year. yes it is a part of our compensation package. if you want to know what i do... ask tw, he'll tell you i'm a "shiny shoe whore".

or i could just tell you that i am a financial advisor. i help people make sure they can retire/ put their kids through college etc...

i'm obviously going to try for the spain/france/italy cruise, but if that doesn't work, i will probably do the Turks & Caicos. i've talked to a few guys who did that one and they just gushed.

i'm not overly worried about my choice because i should be able to land at least one of these per year.

Well you could check out the number of nude beaches. :3_eyes:

Anyway, Ibiza is a 10 hour ferry ride from Spain. Ibiza is sort of the Key West of Spain. It was very multicultural from the beginning in 700 AD, which is why the island resisted the Inquisition better than other refuges.

Nowadays, according to Style, E Channel, etc, Ibiza has become quite the party paradise.

Isn't Ibiza where the vaguely shaped lump of something Arthur Dent had in his bathrobe pocket was from?

Turks & Caicos. Gotta be. You lucky bugger. A funny thing, this problem of choice. You would probably feel the same if you had to choose between 5 different bad things to happen to you, the same level of anxiety etc. Odd.

we'll know by 1:30 today where we are headed. Selections open up at 1pm and i'm sure the Med. cruise slots will be filled by 1:03.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeettttt!!!!

i got one of the slots for the med. cruise! We will be in the med from 8/12/20 of this year. i am so looking forward to it.

Congrats! I'm sure you'll have a blast.

Er...is that the Achilles Laurel? :eek:

I was about to make a brilliant joke about it being quite possible that it could be, as they renamed the boat ...er ...um ... ship for PR reasons ...

But then I found out that she sank.