What does the Spirit of Exploration mean to me?


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A few weeks ago, I mentioned to a colleague that I was heading off on a vacation to Cuba. “Oooh,” she cooed, “what resort are you staying at?”

I blinked. Resort?

Of course, I could understand her logic. The majority of Canadian visitors to Cuba head to Veradero, Cuba’s tourist central. There, all you do is lie on the beach, drink Mojitos, get sunburned, and if you’re very brave, go on a guided bus tour of nearby attractions. To me, this sounded like the most ridiculously BORING vacation imaginable.

I shook my head, laughed, and told her that no, I wasn’t going to a resort, I was staying in a casa particular (rented house) in downtown Havana. It was her turn to blink and look shocked.

To me, the Spirit of Exploration means eating sketchy street food with names you can’t pronounce and contents you don’t want to know. It means dodging jineteros (tourist hustlers) and overly amorous Cuban men. It means taking exhilaratingly dangerous rides on three-wheeled cocotaxi scooters. But it also means discovering neat watering holes and snack stops not mentioned in the guidebooks, and more importantly, meeting real people and getting to know what life is really like outside of the sanitized resorts.

Sapphire Drinks may take you off the beaten path, but it will more often than not lead you to far more interesting places and introduce you to far more interesting people than you’d come across on the dull, well-trodden path. Follow your Spirit of Exploration, I say, and no matter where you go, chances are it’ll take you somewhere memorable.

by Kate Dalgleish
Liquor Log

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Do you have your own story about the Spirit of Exploration? Enter the Spirit of Exploration contest by clicking here.

May 23 2008 08:00 am | Sapphire Drinks

One Response to “What does the Spirit of Exploration mean to me?”

Anonymous),
  1. Judith Says:
    May 29th, 2008 at 2:43 am

    Kate, you are a wonderful writer. A plus all the way. Also an interesting traveller – I hope Washington is on our horizon, and then india. I’d also like to introduce you to Positano.

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  • James Moreland

    A premiere mixologist whose inspired cocktails have graced the front pages of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, James Moreland is one of this generation’s leading spirits authorities. He has been a bartending fixture in New York City for more than eight years — most notably as head bartender at the famed, mixology-forward Town bar.

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