Travel

“You just missed Chris Hoy. He was here leading cycle rides over the summer,” the Peligoni Club’s receptionist informed me breezily as he lugged my suitcase down the gravel path to my villa. Lively Greek music drifted on the (non-existent) breeze, thick air seeming to press down on us despite the late hour.  I’d come to Zakynthos seeking some solo restoration — and sure, even self-improvement. I hadn’t pictured puffing up a rock-strewn hill behind a six-time Olympic gold-medal-winning medalist, in 90-degree heat. But that’s how they roll, here; this family-run, members-only beach club regularly flies in experts to add star quality to the pared-back, luxurious spaces.

Those who have visited Venice in the summertime will have witnessed the masses who descend into the heart of the labyrinthine islands, clogging their historic stone arteries and beautiful atria in a gormless and sclerotic trance. Meandering along the canals can always lead to some duomo or piazza that merits a standstill and an upward gawp. If you’re at all like me, after sweating through those tight streets with other tourists, one day certainly feels like enough. So it went on my recent visit. After popping my head in for as much of the Biennale that was still on display, a Bellini at Harry’s, lunch at Staffa and an inspiring visit to the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, I decided to get in the car and leave.

I had been kicking my heels in a dusty two-star hotel on a dual carriageway in Leon, central Mexico, for days. One afternoon, I spotted a battered old English language hardback in a junk shop window: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.  I had read the book before, half a lifetime ago, in maybe 1985, when I knew nothing about Mexico, failed relationships or alcoholism. Almost 40 years later, with a more than working knowledge of all three, I felt better placed to appreciate Lowry's 1947 masterpiece. With nothing else to do or read, I bought it. I haggled the shopkeeper down to 100 pesos – about £4. Barely 24 intense hours later – the same time span that the novel unfolds in – I had finished it. Or had it finished me?

In the narrow strait between Jura and Scarba, the sea does strange things. Standing waves barrel over phantom surf breaks. Steely waters seethe and swirl, as if stirred by invisible hands. No wonder the gulf’s name, Corryvreckan, means “cauldron of the speckled seas” in Gaelic; this is the world’s third largest whirlpool, classified as “unnavigable” by the Royal Navy. Yet here I am, aboard a thirty-seven-foot rigid inflatable boat (RIB), riding the rapids. Skipper Sandy Campbell cuts the engine so we can try “boat surfing,” the swell dragging us apace past Scarba’s looming quartzite cliffs. Islanders of old dreamt up mystical explanations for this phenomenon.

"Insane, isn’t it?!” Kyle yelled from thirty feet below, leaning back on his snowboard to watch me struggle. I summoned every ounce of strength in my jet-lagged body to prize my legs, still attached to skis, from several feet of fresh snow. Wedged sideways, I pulled myself up by a tree root, alternating between hysterical laughter and acute panic as little progress was made in five minutes. I’d come to Japan for the powder — and I’d sure found it on my first morning in Furano, Hokkaidō. Fighting to stand up, I steeled myself to tackle the impossibly light powder reaching my armpits, on the widest skis I’d ever clipped into. It really did feel different to snow in the US or Europe. This would take some getting used to. “You said you wanted ‘Japow’!