RESORTS : ‘A Winter Vacation Is a Special Joy’

Too often, when a place comes under the scrutiny of a travel writer, it is described in only the noblest of terms, with the writer overlooking the fact that human tastes vary wildly and that factors influencing travel decisions often lie below the conscious thinking of the traveler. In my opinion, the proper quest of the traveler is not to find the place that everybody likes but to find the place that he or she will like. That depends, of course, upon the kind of heart and mind the individual possesses, and nothing else matters--not much, anyway.

A winter vacation is a special joy, and my own private collection of favorite winter playgrounds began many years ago; although the list lives a threatened existence, it has been fairly constant for a number of years, primarily because I know what I like and--even more important--because I know when I’ve found it.

Let me say, forthwith, that I like St. Moritz very much. I consider it in almost every sense a delight, but I acknowledge that it is not flawless. Far from it. In winter, St. Moritz is impeccably fashionable. It is almost too elegant; indeed, it is self-consciously chic. Those criticisms are valid. But it also is luxurious, it possesses a grandness that lifts the spirit and it is exciting . And isn’t excitement one of the most powerful attractions that can grip the imagination of the traveler?

Before going to St. Moritz, my images of it in winter were vague but tantalizing. When I finally emerged from a taxi in front of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel and gazed upon the fabled playground, I instantly felt the wonders of the place. I have been drawn to many strange corners of the world, quite often irrationally, but this was not one of them.

I found out quickly that St. Moritz was not a place only for the over-privileged. The rich, the titled, the famous are there, but it is not their realm exclusively. There are countless others, such as I, who go there because it is one of the loveliest of all Swiss villages, because it possesses four or five hotels that I can describe only as superb, because it is exciting to join--or witness--the pageant of skiers trooping out to the slopes of the Upper Engadines and because the apres -ski life of the Palace Hotel or the Suvretta or the Kulm will surely live up to one’s collection of vivid preconceptions.

I have too much sense to put myself on a tiny steel sled and go down the Cresta run, a breakneck toboggan course that is considered one of the most hazardous in the world, but I like to see others do it. And I like to skate on the half-dozen or so rinks that lie around the village, and I like to see the skiers hurtling like bullets down the Corviglia pistes , and I like to see what celebrities have won the most prestigious seats in the Palace Lobby at cocktail time.

Together, all of these delights create a splendid vacation. I have no ambition to visit the Corviglia Club--unquestionably the most sacredly private and exclusive club in the world--and I don’t really care whether St. Moritz is on the way down, as some say, or holding its own, as others con- tend. I am disinterested in the politics of international society. But there is something exhilarating in the air of St. Moritz, something richly colored and delicately woven, and I find it greatly appealing.

Zihuatanejo, on the other hand, is a totally different story, and it may be difficult to understand how I could like both St. Moritz and Zihuatanejo, because they occupy different geographical and social extremes.

I came across Zihuatanejo accidentally. I had gone to another resort on the Pacific coast of Mexico--the Mexicans are adept at creating resorts out of virgin coastline--and one day I drove a Jeep aimlessly across the mountain and entered a small, beat-up fishing village on a protected cove about seven miles from the new resort.

This was more to my taste. The streets were dusty; the cafes were small and inexpensive; the beaches were lined with small, palm-thatched seafood restaurants, and a languor prevailed that defied haste. I explored Zihuatanejo gingerly; I have been let down by places many times and often not so gently, but the more I saw of Zihuatanejo, the more I liked it. I don’t know that I uncovered aspects of this village hidden to other visitors, but its friendliness, its utter lack of pretense, even its torpor appealed to me.

I found that I could sit in a shaded street cafe over a glass of Mexican beer all afternoon if I wished and not get a scowl from the owner. Or I could wander along the food stalls and buy papaya, mango and coconut for pennies. Or I could sit on the seawall and watch any one of a half-dozen soccer games going on simultaneously on the beach.

There are three beaches at Zihuatanejo. The best is called Playa La Ropa--which translates to “Clothes Beach”--but I can’t tell you how it got its name. I asked but got varying answers, none of which seemed credible. At La Ropa, the mountain slopes sharply to the sea, and here, above the beach, is the laid-back, low-rise Hotel Sotavento, a clean and pleasant place. For many years, this hotel has attracted a loyal following of Americans and Canadians who, as I, had stumbled accidentally across the town and had taken a liking to it.

Someone told me that Playa Las Gatas (“Cats’ Beach”) was the best of the three beaches, but I was told an untruth. I went there one day by boat, and although the beach looks beautiful, the sea bottom here is covered by sharp coral fragments that are brutal on the feet. Playa Zihuatanejo is in the middle of town, and it is safe and shallow and not very clean. Playa La Ropa is the place for swimming.

I like walking the streets of Zihuatanejo and eating in the tiny seafood cafes, where the food is not at all extraordinary but perfectly adequate. One day, in a shop on a side street, I purchased a guayabera shirt and was startled when the proprietor insisted that I get a size that was obviously too big for me. When I asked why such a large size was being forced on me, he replied: “Because, senor , the damned things shrink.”

I liked that, and I took his advice.

The Florida Keys, I must warn you, are not unadulterated fun, and sometimes they are no fun at all if you are not a fisherman. But Islamorado is different. Located roughly midway between the Florida mainland and Key West, Islamorado has a first-class hotel called Cheeca Lodge, a golf course and a profile that sets it apart from the other Keys--which are so devoted to fishing that a visitor would think that nothing else exists.

I find that much of travel through the Keys is a journey of persuasion: You are urged to buy a condominium, buy a trailer, buy a vacation home. But Islamorado provides an oasis in this desert of selling. I have been to this Key many times over the years and have grown to like the easygoing life style there, its weather, its handful of dilapidated and barefoot bars on the Gulf of Mexico side, its one or two extraordinarily good fish houses and the luxury and elegance of Cheeca Lodge sitting at the edge of the sea on the Atlantic coast.

I like tropical islands and I’ve concluded, after a long and thorough search, that there are none at all immediately adjacent to the United States mainland. But Islamorado comes perhaps closest of all to being one.

Bahia, of course, is voodoo country--the soul of black Brazil. Situated on the tropical coastland between Rio and Recife, it is a place of mystery, a fertile soil for the seeds of brooding drama.

African culture blending with the Portuguese has created something strange but seductive, and there is sensuality in the samba rhythm that is always in the air, in the dance of the capoeiro , even in the candomble , the secret and mystic religion that originated in Africa, with rituals composed of dances, vivid colors, gifts to the gods and the stirring rhythms of African drums.

I came to Bahia the first time by ship, and my romance with the city began at once. From the waterfront, I gazed at the frieze of dwellings forming the skyline at the top of a steep bluff. Here were odd but pleasing little houses--no two alike--painted in soothing pastel yellows, greens, pinks and blues. They were dwarfed by other buildings--baroque 18th-Century churches, some apartment buildings, some buildings with functions that I could only guess at. It was only much later, after I had found my way around the city, that I learned that this was the way of Bahia. The houses of the rich, the middle class and the poor were all mixed together in a sort of homogenization that I had never seen before.

Bahia’s real name is Salvador--I never heard anyone call it that--and it had been the capital of Brazil for two centuries. At one time, it was a city of great wealth--the most important city south of the Equator--but its days of opulence ended long ago. Today it slumbers, content with its music, its flamboyant art, its rich colors, its dancing and its voodoo.

On my first visit, a Brazilian friend, a young journalist, took me to his seventh-floor walk-up apartment for a drink. We wandered out to the small terrace on the roof to see the splendors of the city--the crooked streets, the brilliant green parks, the blue bay and a sea of ancient tile roofs that lay beneath us. Music seemed to come from every building; cocks crowed in the middle of the city, and the sound of children’s laughter filled the air. I had the strange feeling that I was in a tropical village and not a city.

Yet, across the street was the garden of the Medical College, filled with tangled vines, banyan trees, jacaranda and hibiscus flowering wildly. More than anything, it resembled a tropical jungle; yet, only a few feet away, traffic flowed.

When I begin to think of Bahia as a village, I recall an elegant luncheon I had at the Casa de Gambao, on the grand corniche, or I remember the Luxor Convento do Carmo, an ancient Carmelite convent turned into a dazzlingly beautiful hotel, and I realize that this is indeed a city.

The old town quickly became my favorite part of Bahia. I walked endlessly along its narrow streets and looked at the decaying houses covered with pastel paint. I watched presses on the street squeezing out cane juice to be sold to passers-by, wondering all the while why the people waved to me--a white stranger--yet pleased that they did. On every corner I thought I saw Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor , and every night I heard the echoes of countless tales of intrigue and dark deeds and passion. I will return to Bahia many times.