Man detained in Cayenne, French Guiana airport for having hummingbirds in his pants

Filed under: Stories, South America, Airports, News, Travel SecurityA Dutch man was detained at Rochambeau airport in Cayenne in French Guiana for attempting to smuggle over a dozen live hummingbirds out of the country. The passenger was apparently acting suspicious and searched by authorities. According to Jeanna Cullinan of insightcrime.org, each of the tiny birds were wrapped in cloth to keep them still, and then placed into pouches that were located above the man's crotch. When authorities checked his record, they found that this was not his first conviction for attempted hummingbird smuggling.

While this may sound bizarre, this type of crime is known as "eco-trafficking" and is quite a lucrative business, although illegal. Eco-trafficking is the act of "trafficking in rare and endangered species" and generates billions of dollars for organized crime groups in Latin America. Worldwide, Interpol believes that eco-trafficking brings in up to $20 billion in profits annually.Man detained in Cayenne, French Guiana airport for having hummingbirds in his pants originally appeared on Gadling on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Photo of the day - Wine shop window

Filed under: Europe, France, Photo of the Day

Some things look exactly the way they're supposed to look. Take this wine shop window snapped in the town of Beaune in the heart of Burgundy, France. This is serious wine country, and this wine shop window is straight out of central casting: the row of wine bottles; the various discarded crates; the exterior trim; the cursive stenciled into the window. Flickr user Lobelia48 shot this image in June of this year.

Got some photos in your archive that capture the fantasy of a place admirably well? Upload said images to the Gadling Group pool on Flickr and you might end up seeing one of your own photos featured as a future Photo of the Day.Photo of the day - Wine shop window originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Key to Costa Rica offering 10% discount on Fall tours

Filed under: Activism, Arts and Culture, Learning, Costa Rica, Ecotourism, Budget Travel, Travel Deals, Central AmericaKey to Costa Rica is offering a 10% discount on tours going to Costa Rica now through November 30, 2011. The focus of these tours is eco-tourism, with itineraries being planned by green travel consultant Beatrice Blake who has not only lived in Costa Rica for 13 years, but has been advising travels since 1996. For those who may not be familiar with eco-tourism, it is a type of travel, usually to a protected or fragile area of land, that is low-impact on the Earth and is meant to educate travelers, provide money for ecological programs, and give insight into the culture.

Travelers have the option to create customized Costa Rican tours or choose from one of the Key to Costa Rica trips, such as Enchanting Costa Rica, which includes bird watching, hiking, visiting an organic coffee farm, and lodging in traditional-style thatched roof cabins. Trips include itineraries for active families, children, nature lovers, and bird enthusiasts. There are also tours specifically for those who want to experience Slow Travel as well as those wishing to volunteer in the region.Key to Costa Rica offering 10% discount on Fall tours originally appeared on Gadling on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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The Gathering: Sun Valley, IDPoster signingGriffin Post and Tim McChesney4Bi9Second annualAfter partyThe RooseveltJosh Berman gets countryRedneck womanThe masterAfter DarkFree skisThe crowdThe ItalsJah Glory

The Gathering, a movie and music festival, took place last weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the second year in a row. Movies were watched, shotguns were fired, and rednecks listened to reggae.

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Beer of the WeekGreat American Beer FestivalMateVeza BeerSaranac Pale AleLongboard Island LagerMamma's Little Yella PilsMyrcenary Double IPAHop Rod RyeHeadwall AltSanta Fe Pale AleHoney Basil Beer

What we're drinking now.

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SIA Show Hits 6-Year Attendance High

..... McLean, Va. (Ski Press)-SnowSports Industries America (SIA) is reporting a six-year attendance high for the inaugural Snow Show recently held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado from January 28-31, 2010.The sold-out Snow Show attracted 18,932 attendees and featured over 3,100 booths representing 845 snow sports brands, including 125 new exhibitors. Throughout the four-day trade show, numerous television camera crews, photographers and reporters could be seen roaming the Show aisles to report on next season's hottest fashions, gear and accessories. Snow Show exhibitors were kept busy with appointments and interviews with 875 journalists in-attendance. "Participating in the Snow Show exceeded our expectations. We were overwhelmed by the interest from retailers, distributors and the public. As a result of being featured in a local FOX 31 television report on the Snow Show a distributor came to us with a great opportunity," commented Brett Curtis of Manic Snow. The 2010 Snow Show buying power index, measured by Leisure Trends Group, totaled 74.9% for the U.S. retail buying power. Total buyer attendance was up 9.6% from last year's Show with 4,561 buyers from 1,309 buying managements. The buying power is a measurement of U.S. retail sales from specialty ski and snowboard shops in attendance at the Show. An early stat from the Buyer Survey indicates that 95% of the buyers felt that the SIA Snow met their objectives and more than 50% of the buyers said the economy still has an effect on their business. Snow Show audited retail attendance numbers indicated a notable increase in the number of retailers from the Rocky Mountain and Midwest regions compared to the previous year. On the flip side, there was a drop in West Coast and Northeast retailers. "For the first year in Denver, in the middle of a recession, we're very happy with the attendance numbers. We were lighter in some regions but we hope they'll come back next year after hearing all the positive experiences people had this year," said David Ingemie, president of SIA. "The Show wound up great this year. The Never Summer booth was constantly busy with both local and out of town buyers and Denver had enough options to keep it interesting," commented Mike "Gags" Gagliardi, Never Summer Snowboards. The Snow Show officially kicked off on the evening of January 27th, when 1,600+ attendees and a select group of consumers previewed the hottest on/off slope fashions for next season at SIA's Snow Fashion Show. The music was loud, the lights were bright and the fashions were anything but demure with bright colors, prints and lots of style. New product buzz on the Show floor included cutting edge technology heading to the Olympics and the continuing story of rocker or reverse camber technology for both skis and snowboards. Outerwear fashion could hardly be pinned down at the Show ? with as many styles and color schemes to match the diverse personalities that love snow sports. There was plenty of bright (even neon) colors, plaids, geometric shapes and creative prints bringing to life outerwear and apparel collections.

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The Authentic Ski Tour: Red Lodge, Day 1

..... Billings, Montana (Ski Press)-They say that what you seek is what you find. So I shouldn?t have been surprised in the Billings airport, the ?gateway to the big sky,? to feel like I had landed in 1975, waiting for my bags in a nostalgic mountain scene of ranchers, miners and skiers, before anyone had heard of timeshares.Maybe it was the cowboys drinking Budweisers at the airport bakery and pastry bar, the guys in the seats on the plane behind me trading Clydesdale dreams and the promise of open land, or the horse statues at the baggage carousel, the stuffed sheep and all the soldiers coming home. But that sense of grassroots wonder started as soon as I heard those two good old boys behind me talking on the plane. ?If I had one of those Clydesdales I?d just keep it like a big old dog. Here puppy, puppy,? one of them said. And the other one agreed, that they were the most beautiful horses, and started to tell a story about how he used to ship bull semen all over the world. But then the plane hit a patch of bad air and the younger one said, ?Right now I?m just imagining that I?m driving down a gravel road.? Jeff Carroll picked me up outside. Tall, blonde and eternally tan, he had been Red Lodge Mountain?s Director of Sales and Marketing for nine months now, having made the move from Tamarack in Idaho. He said he had jumped at the job, and loved the mountain, and loved the opportunity to tell his wife that she was going home. ?She grew up here,? he said, driving to Red Lodge with all the deer beside the road. ?So it?s pretty amazing to raise our family here, too. He said he had a little girl, and another baby on the way. And I told him I remembered Red Lodge from coming up from Jackson Hole to ski Beartooth Pass in the late spring when the road was plowed between high white walls of snow; the red brick parade of buildings down Broadway and all the cowboy hats and Carhartts in the bars. We ate steak at the Carbon County Steakhouse, a perfect New York and Cowboy Coffee Ribeye. And I slept at Pollard?s down the street, the grand red brick hotel with the history of ?Liver? eating Johnston and William Jennings Bryants and even Ernest Hemingway on fishing trips coming through. There was a plaque behind the counter with the quote, ?Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart,? by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that had been saved from the heyday of the miner?s ?Theatorium? next door. ?They started clearing out a lot of the statues and stuff when that place was used to make our own special ?cough syrup? during Prohibition,? the lady at check-in said. ?They used to ship their ?cure? all the way to Chicago and San Francisco.? I wanted to ask her more in the morning but she was gone. So I walked past the neon tipi of the Red Lodge Caf�, the wine bar, antique, pottery and kitchen stores, and past a fence made of skis where I saw a truck attached to an extension cord to keep the engine warm right next to an open Subaru hatchback loaded with fishing gear and thought: ?That?s Montana right there.? Slightly more than 2,000 people live in Red Lodge. And Jeff Carroll said his destination ski traffic is heavily weighted to North Dakota and Minnesota. ?So will I see lots of snowmobile suits and Viking?s Starter Jackets on the slope?? ?Oh,? Jeff assured me. ?Those are some of our best customers.? I didn?t see any obvious Brett Favre fans, but lots of hot-rodders in camouflage came zipping by, and telemarkers, snowboarders and kids in Day-Glo. We saw them skiing off Nichols and Grizzly Peak, and down into Palisades Park where the cliffs rise up like dinosaurs. Down the tree-sided steeps of Upper Continental and True Grit, and zooming the open slope of Lazy M with Bob, a fast-skiing welder from Billings who rides Harleys and only hunts with black powder now. He led us down ?Lodge Trail,? a gullet of bumps into the base area where I wish I had stopped to pull out my camera. And he stopped and smiled up at the sunshine and said, ?I?m going to have a beer then see a man about buying a house. It?s time I made the commute from here to Billings instead of the other way around.? At the gas station, Jeff started talking to the banker who said, ?Oh, Chico Hot Springs. You guys are going to love it there.?� Links: The Carbon County Steakhouse: www.thepizzaco.com/steakhouse The Pollard Hotel: www.thepollard.com Red Lodge Mountain: www.redlodgemountain.com

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