Pura

Pura Aventura is a UK based tour operator specialising in active, comfortable and responsible holidays to Latin America and Spain. We’re an independent company, run by a small team who are driven by a passion for the places we know and love. It is our mission to deliver unique holidays in stunning places. We are really at the hub of a dedicated network of local partners, family run businesses and expert local guides. So, if you’re looking for a wonderful self-guided, tailor made, small group, family holiday or honeymoon, Pura Aventura will help make it happen. As long as you are OK with going to Spain or Latin America!

Brazil World Cup 2014 accommodation packages

Brazil Holidays, Travel musings No Responses »

May 162013

topo pacotes copa Brazil World Cup 2014 accommodation packages

Fancy Rio in 2014 for the world cup?

We’ve just received notification of the first hotel packages in from Brazil for next year. As a reminder, the dates are June 12th to July 13th 2014.

In the name of rampant profiteering, the hotels are requesting minimum stays of 32 nights (!) so if you have a little over a month to dedicate to the world cup, you’re in luck and should give us a call on 01273 676 712.

However, our partners on the ground in Rio have taken some of these blocks and broken them down into rather less unwieldy blocks of 8 & 9 nights.

June 11th/19th – 8 nights
June 19th/27th – 8 nights
June 27th/July 6th – 9 nights
July 6th/14th – 8 nights

Dates of the games in Rio – Maracanã Stadium:

Round 1
June, 15th – 7 p.m.
June, 18th – 7 p.m.
June, 22nd – 7 p.m.
June, 25th – 5 p.m.

Last-16 round
June, 28th – 5 p.m.

Quarter-finals
July, 4th – 1 p.m.

Final match
July, 13th – 4 p.m.

So if you want to hit the most matches then June 19th-27th is the one to go for with 3 possible matches covered. The 27th June – 6th July gets you in Rio for the final group stages and a quarter final so could be exciting. And if it’s the final or bust for you then you’ll have a week to explore Rio before seeing the big game.

Now for the brass tacks, it isn’t cheap. As we expected. Prices are approximate so call us on +44 (0)1273 676 712 to confirm. Note that prices are for the accommodation, bed & breakfast, only and do not include any football tickets, transport or other services. Note that prices are PER NIGHT based on 8 or 9 night fixed stays as per the dates above.

Golden Tulip Regente – 4 star
Delux Ocean Front room – single or double works out at nearly £1,000 per night.

Merlin Copacabana – 4 star
Standard room – double is just under £800 a night.

Windsor Leme – 4 Star
Superior room – single or double at £1,000 per night
Deluxe room – single or double £1,150 per night

Windsor Copacabana – 3 star
Standard Room – single or double room £750 per night.

Windsor Martinique
Standard Room – single or double is £725 per night.

Atlantis – 3 star
Standard room – single or double £390 a night.

Copacabana Suites – 3 star (apartment)
Superior Suite – single or double £625 per night.

As I say, drop us a line if you are keen to see some of the World Cup, sorry, FIFA (TM) World Cup INC all rights reserved, etc., World Cup. It’s not going to be cheap to get there but it will be an enormous amount of fun and Rio is always a beautiful host!df

Crisis in Spain 2013

Spain Holidays, Travel musings Comments Off

Mar 252013

In 2014 there will be two types of Spaniard. Those living overseas and the homeless.

As Cyprus teeters on the edge, what’s the latest from Spain? I was sent a link to this video about the situation in Spain made by the consultancy Grant Thornton. It’s certainly refreshing to hear a positive take on Spain’s current situation. Reading the news, it is all to easy to think of Spain as being in a state of total collapse, this video goes some way to explaining why that isn’t the case. Spain’s engineering sector, in particular, is world leading and will undoubtedly be one of the ways in which the country will emerge from the debt crisis.

Tourism too is and will continue to play its part. And it’s true, I can’t quite reconcile the bad news stories (home repossessions, unemployment, average salaries, etc) with the feeling you get actually being in Spain.

I think you’d expect to go to Spain and see just everyone sleeping out on the street and weeping on street corners (I exaggerate for effect but it’s not far off the perception).

The truth is very different of course BUT where is the impact really being felt & seen? The numbers are the numbers so average pay, unemployment, etc are all presumably real.

Is it that you have swathes of the country where the crisis is very very apparent and others where you don’t? Is it that the hidden economy is so large that the official figures are somewhat irrelevant because half the population is living off money stored in their mattresses?

Why am I hearing about so many educated young Spaniards leaving the country? Why is Brighton full to the brim with Spaniards?! I know a chef here who advertised for a washer-up at the minimum wage (£6.50 an hour) and had loads of applications from Spaniards including doctors & architects.

Well, here’s our good and wise friend Isabel Cortes’ take on it and I think it’s a refreshingly frank explanation and the first which has reconciled the feeling you get being in Spain with the headlines.

“It’s true that it is a very special situation. In truth, in the street you don’t notice it so much (Isabel is based in Madrid). The bars and restaurants continue to be full though the majority, including the top end ones, have dropped their prices. There are many, many closed shops and many which have turned into ‘outlet shops’.

Of course, there is very little work and Blanca’s (her daughter, in her mid-30s) generation, people incredibly well prepared and with spectacular CVs, are unemployed after having had important jobs with responsibility. This explains why there are so many of them overseas accepting rubbish jobs. Here in my building last summer, the doorman’s holiday cover was a 42 year old architect!!!

Charitable organisations have seen a tripling in the number of people asking for help. Many families are living off the pensions of their grandparents and if it were not for such strong family ties and A LOT of hidden economy, we would have seen public order breaking down by now.

It’s also true that for many people in the upper and upper middle classes, it seems that they haven’t really noticed the crisis.

We’ll see where this all ends, above all, when.

What’s happening is that the Spanish character means that they take calamities somewhat in their stride with a very particular philosophy, in general preferring to carry on living out in the street or in the local bar than being locked away at home.

Let’s see if the English start to travel to Spain….”

There’s also a degree of good humour to the Spanish, I particularly like this example:

Which translates as:

Each century a Gallego (Galician) and a German makes life difficult for Spaniards. We’d better get together to get rid of them again.

(In case you don’t know, the top picture is Franco (Galician) with Hitler – the bottom is the current Spanish president Rajoy (also Galician) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel).

If you’d like to travel to Spain, don’t forget Pura offer a great range of handmade active holidays to Spain.

Why does nobody like flying?

Travel musings Comments Off

Feb 182013

I have just been reading an article by the ever wonderful Seth Godin which uncovers why it is that none of us likes to fly. What it boils down to is that it’s not flying we hate, it’s airports and the way they make us feel. You can read his short article here.

There is much to agree with in here but it does come down to the individual airport and to the staff.

I have to say that having come through Edinburgh airport this weekend, it really is a pleasant environment – easily the most attractive and relaxing of the UK airports I’ve been to. It doesn’t stop inside the terminal though, they have a fantastic bus in and out of the city centre which costs £6 return. It was noticeable coming in to land in Gatwick that the in-flight Easyjet team were offering to sell us Gatwick Express tickets to central London for £33 return. Granted it’s further from Gatwick to central London than it is from Turnhouse to central Edinburgh but not that much further!

In defence of Gatwick airport or at least the ancillary services. I parked up in Airparks car park at 6am on Saturday morning, hopped on the bus to the terminal only to realise that I had left my phone in the car. I called Airparks to say what I’d done, initially just to let them know that I knew that the phone was in the car so don’t let any of your employees try to nick it. How wrong I was. Within 4 minutes my phone had been retrieved, put on the next bus to the terminal and 15 minutes later was back in my hand. Fantastic service and yet I’d paid the lowest possible price for that parking (£12 for 2 days). So congratulations to Airparks Gatwick for their team and the service they deliver.

It did put me in a good frame of mind for the journey though and I just sailed through so I, like Shashank Nigam of Simpliflying, might like to defend airports, they are getting better. In this Simpliflying article there are some great examples of good practice.

My favourites are the bloke tweeting Heathrow to ask where he can get a good pint of cider in T3 (I mean honestly!). The tweets about dirty toilet facilities and of course the flashmob at, I think, Dubai airport.

At this stage though, I’d be happy if all UK airports could be brought up to the standards of Edinburgh’s Turnhouse, I think we’d all be a little better off for it.

Older Entries