last posting

Glory in the Camel’s Eye Trekking Through the Moroccan Sahara

            In this nonfiction book by Jeffrey Tayler is the story about his travels from the Moroccan Sahara Desert all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Jeffrey Tayler is a man who became fascinated with the world of Morocco and how the people live there. He wrote this book so he would not forget and also for others to know and learn about his adventure. Throughout the trip he had one goal - to make it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean across a vast expanse of sand. The story was written in chronological order; from the first day he left to the day he accomplished his goal.

            The story is a nonfiction first-person narrative. He defines words that the readers wouldn’t know immediately and that is the strategy of context clues that keeps up the interest of the reader. For example, “ the marabout opened his hands in a supplicatory gesture and looked heavenward… ‘Allah yiftah’alayk… I in the name of God and Sidi Nasir and all the awalya’! There is no power and no strength except in God!” This is a perfect epitome of the authors engaging style and strategy.

            The author chose not to use footnotes in his text, rather he explained through narrative prose so the reader could understand. Also he used dialogue to create a vision of the scene. For example, one of the exerts that I remember clearly is when one of the radiators was leaking and he thought that they needed a mechanic. “Why go to the mechanic when there’s pepper?” His driver used pepper to close up the whole in the radiator. Jeffrey uses humorous and lively dialogue to show the scene in a detailed way. This also shows how creative you can get when you live in an underdeveloped country.

            As Jeffrey and his guide’s get further and further into the Sahara, things begin to get harder and more tiring. Jeffrey’s guides leave a lot of things that are out of their control to Allah who is the God for the Muslim religion. “If God wills” is a common saying by the guides Mbari and Hassan. For example, “if God wills, then is will rain,” or “ if God wills then we will survive.”  Some of the main points he wants to get across to the audience are the following: having confidence in yourself and in your project is the key to having a successful outcome. Jeffrey is not only confident; he is determined to achieve his goal with a first-class attitude.

            Jeffrey Tayler is one of the bravest people for what he did and accomplished. All of what he said in the book is completely true and credible. The reader becomes part of the adventure because he makes the trip seem so real by not trying to teach you something on every page but make it feel like you were there. He is an explorer, who completed many expeditions, but none that are quite as difficult or life threatening. Although he is not Arabic, he is still accepted by most of the people he encounters. He speaks Arabic, which allows him to seem more culturally similar and is possibly one of the reasons why he is not threatened or hurt during the expedition.  This book appears to be very popular and influential according to New York Times, NPR, and CNN.com.

             This book exemplifies my topic because the author is traveling in an exotic part of the world. Also, some stuff that I learned throughout this blog project is that people don’t just vacation for the blatant idea of getting away fro stress or work, which is what Jeffrey does. He is traveling for his love of exploring and is pushing himself to do things that are life threatening but also not impossible. I think that reading this book allowed me to meet my goal of really understanding why people vacation or travel. I particularly enjoyed the parts where they were struggling, but always found a way to overcome that obstacle. I was constantly amazed at the miraculous sequence of events that kept the expedition going. They would run completely out of water at one point on their journey and randomly stumble upon a nomad tent where they would be fed and given water. It was things like this that made me realize why these people believe Allah takes care of everything. The only thing that I didn’t like about the book was the dificulty of pronouncing and reading the Arabic words. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a humorous but adventurous to the extreme book. It is an amazing book and it almost feels like your there at certain times and scenes.

             

11th posting

I am choosing to write about my progress so far and the impacts of this blog on my overall writing skills. In the beginning of this project I thought that I would be doing little research and very little deep thinking. Well, I was completely wrong about that! Suffice it to say I have enjoyed digging deeply into research and soaking in the information.

Research and thinking deeply is harder than you think. Looking beyond the ordinary, or just thinking much more in depth is a very important skill to obtain. In my 7th posting I talked about a country’s hidden agenda to make a short-term profit. By looking a little further, I found some very interesting facts and opinions. For example, I found that the big resort hotels are sometimes hurting the environment by dumping their waste into the nearby lake or ocean. That was something that I would never have expected to learn while researching about long-term affects. Nevertheless, it is cool to learn something interesting that may not be directly related to your issue or point.

It has been an exciting journey and I have enjoyed writing my blog every week. It has been more than just boring homework it has been an interesting topic with a variety of eye-catching subtopics and diverse ideas each week. That figures high on my list of priorities. I am also happy to provide this information and be able to present it in a way so everyone can read it and learn something from it.

I have learned to write a movie review, a deeply written essay with a thesis, a progress report, a report with a numerical poll, a report with a data chart, and a variety of other literary writing styles that are related to this topic. Given this experience, I feel prepared to do this again if I were given the chance and also I feel lucky to have had so much freedom with this project. All the information that I have learned from my topic on exotic getaways has allowed me to decipher the true meaning of vacation and form my own opinion about it. Vacation is to do something solely for you, and get away from the distractions of life. Also, never look back on the stresses of living and always focus on what’s good in life and what you want to do.

10th posting

Movie Review

Who wouldn’t be willing to go to paradise to save your marriage? This was the premise used by Cynthia and Jason to convince three other couples into joining them for an exotic getaway. Couples Retreat is a comedy directed by Peter Billingsley and written by Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Dana Fox, who have all worked together in the past. This fictional film is an enjoyable adventure to the incredibly beautiful setting of Bora Bora. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (actors in this movie) add a humorous touch to the film, and with the extremely young and attractive wives, it creates a typical man-directed film. 

One would remember Peter Billingsley as the child actor turned producer/director who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story. He has a lifetime of experience in filmmaking and producing movies since he’s been in Hollywood most of his life. He has an innate ability to create hilariously funny scenes. Peter was also behind the scenes as an executive producer in the movie Iron Man directed by Jon Favreau, who actually plays Joey in Couples Retreat.

“It looks like a screensaver!” says actor Jon Favreau as Joey when they arrive at Eden resort at Bora Bora. But what they didn’t know is that they’re not going to be undergoing the typical free-to-do-what-you-want schedule. Instead, when obtaining the agenda brochure from the Eden Resort receptionist they found otherwise. Although, Cynthia and Jason, the one’s driving the plan, already knew about this so called agenda of waking up at 6 A.M. and doing couple’s skill building classes and experiencing the French Fabio of yoga instructors, the other three couples remain clueless. The humor and hilarity of the misunderstanding generates the adventure that the couples will go through.            

Couples Retreat is far from an immaculate film, but is a light-hearted entertaining movie that teaches a lesson. Learning to live with your spouse by staying true to yourself is one of the messages that I perceived from watching this film. After the couples got over the agenda problem things got interesting, funny and free. They started to loosen up and have fun with it. The film accomplishes their goal by creating a true-to-life relevant and funny story line. Since the people who made this film were familiar with each other, by default, they added another success to their list of achievements. 

9th posting

In America people spend approximately 3% of their annual income on traveling. These findings were recorded in 2008, and it is my opinion that the recession has caused a decline in the 3% since then. The 97% portion of the graph incorporates mortgage payments or rent, food, utilities, clothing, insurance, entertainment and communication costs. Families work in order to pay for the cost of living, which is so high that people are not able to take as much time away from all this as they used to. One of the things I noticed about this graph is the 44% of that 3% is used for transportation. That just shows you that the price of traveling is dependant on the price of oil and gas. It also shows our dependence on outside countries that are in control of the indispensable energy of everyday life.

The Bureau of Labor has access to people’s tax records to use as part of their research. Because this site is a .gov I believe it is very accurate and reliable as far as factual information goes. Out of anyone who could come up with this graph, the US Department of Labor knows about this stuff on a national level. They have a lot of data to analyze and support. This data point is probably under the scrutiny of the BLS on a yearly basis. This is relevant to my topic because if Americans are among the most traveled people in the world this impacts the tourism industry negatively. The percent of  a households traveling costs will have an effect on the tourism industry because of the recession and because of what I said above (people having to work and pay the 97% of the graph just to live normaly). This data opened my eye’s up to all the things households pay for besides their travel costs. This also made me sad because Americans aren’t taking as much time for themselves anymore and their mostly focusing on making it financially on a daily basis.

Month, By. "Travel: BLS Spotlight on Statistics." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. July 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. <http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2010/travel/>.

8th posting

            Throughout this English 4 class I have developed a liking for this blog project. It allows us to save paper, and use our existing technology. It was a rigorous challenge getting myself started with this blog, particularly choosing my topic. Exotic getaways have been a wonder to me forever, but so have many other things, which made it hard to decide on one topic of interest. When I decided to do exotic vacation spots I did some simple research to find some quick facts. It ended up being a little harder because there are key words you have to type in to find information, and not just a travel site that doesn’t help. I learned so much since we started, which is what I was striving for. I feel more aware of what is happening in the vacation world presently now that I’ve done some deep research. Also, I have learned much more about where to vacation and where to not vacation depending on my liking.

            This last blog helped me learn lots of stuff related to my thesis. I got to know more about how resorts make money and maintain a steady income. I also have been able to learn about the poverty and wastewater issue’s involved specifically in Cancun Mexico where they have giant resort areas with people living in 5 star conditions. That opened my eyes up to other possible countries who are suffering this crisis as well. When I posted my poll a couple weeks ago I noticed some interesting stuff as I analyzed the data. But I was expecting this data for a reason. People will not vacation to places too much like where they currently live because you wouldn’t be experiencing anything different. This blog project also helped me pick and choose the “credible” sites and find information within the site that helps you decide weather it is a reliable site. In the very beginning of this blog project I was researching simply vacationing in today’s society. I found it to be much more rare to vacation then it used to be, mostly because of people’s financial state. Also, people do not just vacation to get away from work or stress. I found that people actually travel to volunteer or to cook. Many cooking vacations have become popular and yoga as well.

            Now that I know a lot about exotic places I feel more prepared to travel. Although I still wonder things about people’s cultural activities involved when you travel to other countries, what to do and not do, and what to say and not say mostly involving respect. I hope to further my research to the point where I know as much as possible and my brain can’t take anymore. The rubric proved to be indispensable in preparing my blog posts throughout this project because it guided my writing. It was fun to design and work on a project that is under development the whole time. It’s helped me be a better editor and also designer. 

7th Posting

When building expensive, world-class resort areas, the danger and pressure to make short-term profit often hides long-term ramifications and eventually puts countries in a bad economic state. Some of those ramifications can range from, retaining workers, and maintaining a clean and luxurious area, to making sure there is enough money to operate the resort and pay their bills and taxes. Also, making a profit from tourist income is an issue because most country’s goals are to create cash flow, and make more money than they spent building the resort. This can be a challenge especially for third world countries since it is costly to bring in materials and they are dependant on the tourist as a commodity. Nowadays, the average tourist needs to come from all over the world in order to keep the reservations coming in. For example, the money it takes to build the resort and the cash flow it takes to keep the place running like paying the workers, cleaners, and cooks, will affect their profit in the long run if tourists are only coming from one location. The development costs of a resort are also difficult to plan for when you depend on many other countries for building materials, supplies and more. This is why it is dangerous to build expensive resorts without first thinking and planning for the future.

            When building a sizeable resort there is many intangible issues that you have to take into account. Travel cost is an important factor in making a profit; it must be affordable for the tourist to reach the destination and have enough money left over to spend while they are there. “The direct income for an area is the amount of tourist expenditure that remains locally after taxes, profits, and wages are paid outside the area and after imports are purchased; these subtracted amounts are called leakage (http://www.unep.fr/scp/tourism/sustain/impacts/economic/negative.htm, Economic Impacts of Tourism)”. A portion of the money that is spent by the tourists actually goes to companies that are not located within that country, like “A study of tourism 'leakage' in Thailand estimated that 70% of all money spent by tourists ended up leaving Thailand (via foreign-owned tour operators, airlines, hotels, imported drinks and food, etc.). Estimates for other Third World countries range from 80% in the Caribbean to 40% in India (http://www.publicsector.org)”. So, even though people are spending money to go to a certain resort, all of that money does not calculate into a profit for the country. Developers have to do methodical research in order to make a business plan that considers all these complex details.

            The tourism industry is causing resorts to lose part of the local economy. The big businesses that assail the country’s income are taking an essential part of their economic income. “Economic recession and the impacts of changing tourism patterns can have a devastating effect on the local tourism sector (http://www.unep.fr/scp/tourism/sustain/impacts/economic/negative.htm, Economic Impacts of Tourism)”. One of the risks involved in these world class resorts is the fact that you have to make sure people are able to vacation there. In other words, if people, for some economic reason, cannot visit the resort anymore, there is a huge issue for the country that relies on that income. The resort also must make sure that they are able to meet their operating costs and build in a profit margin allowing for fluctuations in the market. If tourism stops in that resort area, the country is lacking economic stability and therefore will not be able to pay for all of these costs. 

            The local resort needs to appeal to a global population and economy because “Of each US $100 spent on a vacation tour by a tourist from a developed country, only around US $5 actually stays in a developing-country destination's economy. http://www.unep.fr/scp/tourism/sustain/impacts/economic/negative.htm, Economic Impacts of Tourism)”. For example, if you take a look at the historical development of the Aspen area as a world-class resort you can see how it has changed to keep up with the economic times. In the 1960’s Aspen was mainly a winter ski resort. Over the years, Aspen continued to expand the mountain terrain to include Aspen Highlands, Aspen Mountain, Snowmass and Buttermilk. Aspen has even grown to include such things as the X Games, music festivals of all kinds, and fall and summer times of year for tourism. It shows how the resort has had to evolve in order to keep people coming.

             Clearly the ramifications are more long term than short term when building and maintaining a resort area.  Also, there are clear and present risks involved in making a world-class resort, which makes the process and development more complicated. It is not worth building if you do not have a business plan for all the expenses and operations that have to maintain themselves as long as the resort is functioning.

Works Sited

"UNEP DTIE SCP Branch: Tourism." UNEP Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. <http://www.unep.fr/scp/tourism/sustain/impacts/economic/negative.htm>.

"Agenda 21." While Travelling 5 - Questions for Your Travel Agent. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. <http://www.publicsector.org/local_agenda_21and_you/WhileTravelling/5Questions.html>.

"What We Do." Tourism Concern. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. <http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/>.

6th Posting

There is a paradox existing between many five star resorts with every luxury imaginable, and the local neighborhoods down the street where families are living in blatant poverty. A place that exemplifies this is Cancun, Mexico. When tourists vacation in Cancun, most of them do not leave the Zona Hotelera, which is the long strip of hotels, resorts and expensive stores. The resorts are designed so no American feels far from home with  McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food places, along with anything else they need. The Zona is located just one block from a very distinct dividing line. “More than 44 million Mexican families are living in poverty. They literally have nothing, no clean water, no money for food, and no clean living conditions. About 15 million of the 44 million live in what we would call extreme poverty, with no food and nothing to sustain them. (Cancuncanuck.com, Blog Action Day-Poverty in Mexico).” “Going down Avenue Kukulkan, a long strip of golf courses and polluted lagoons, you come along Km. 0, the point at which the scenery begins to change. Still there are the multinationals like Pizza Hut and OfficeMax. The hotels are gone, as well as the beach and most of the gringos. Here are the markets and smaller ‘quainter’ restaurants. Here is where the tourists would come to experience some ‘culture.’ Beyond this is unknown to them. Here, in these neighborhoods, there is often no fresh water or electricity, and no sewage treatment plants. The groundwater is contaminated from sewage runoff, so self-sufficiency is hopeless. Education is often ignored in the face of poverty, and drugs have become a useful response to the boredom that goes along with it. The lagoons are becoming polluted by leakage from the hotels. The very attractions that support the infrastructure of Cancun, the beaches and the sea, are perishing under the weight of capitalism. This means that Cancun is dying, and with it goes the whole population of Cancun. Those who have built Cancun will surely go down with it, while only those who profit will escape, unharmed. (upsidedownworld.org, The Real Cancun).” This harsh viewpoint proposes a reality that in-fact turn out to be true in the long run. What happens when we can’t travel anymore if our economy is not strong enough to support personal luxury travel? Cancun will not so beautiful if they are solely dependent upon tourism income. 

 When the Zona Hotelera was being developed, the Mexican government wanted to have a tourism area that was more popular than Acapulco at the time. Before the development, this area of the Yucatan Peninsula was a thick jungle. “Cancun was the first large project this part of the country had ever seen and was expected to help the economy. The Mexican government pushed the project by investing itself vast amounts of money into the infrastructure of the area. (SunofCancun.com, History of Cancun Mexico).”  They wanted to turn it into a five star resort area because they knew it would bring money into the economy like it had done with Acapulco. The tourist industry is not all about exploitation. These resorts are supporting and contributing to the development of the local economy by providing jobs and making money available to further improve the systems like water, roads and power. It is possible that Cancun will eventually become like Acapulco, where instead of having poverty-stricken shacks next to the resort, they will actually evolve into more middle class neighborhoods with grocery stores, homes and schools. During this evolution there are many details to consider. They have to decide whether to maintain the resort as a non-urban beach setting or let it grow naturally into a big city.  It is a question of balance – how to keep tourists coming to an exotic getaway or to make it more like home with a Wal-mart just down the street from your hotel. So far, resort areas in the Cancun strip are finding ways to improve their resort without allowing too much commercialization. This is quite a challenge throughout the tourism industry.

Works Sited

"Blog Action Day- Poverty in Mexico." A Canuck in Cancun. 15 Oct. 2008. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. <http://www.cancuncanuck.com/2008/10/poverty-in-mexico.html>.

"History of Cancun Mexico." Cancun Mexico. 2004. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sunofcancun.com/history-cancun-mexico.php>.

Tonak, By Ali. "The Real Cancun (11/10/03)." Upside Down World. 17 Oct. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. <http://upsidedownworld.org/main/trade-archives-54/78-the-real-cancun-111003>.