The Museum of Quai Branly is a hybrid museum mixing post-colonial and postmodern. The museum is an attempt to merge art and ethnography. It is neither the Louvre nor the Musée de l’Homme. Quai Branly plays a role in transmission not only of knowledge, but also of testimony and emotion, offering visitors a choice of possibilities for taking part in a dialogue of cultures.

The museum boasts with an unusual profile from Jean Nouvel’s sienna-toned cubes piercing the postured exterior to the anti-gravitational plant wall by Patrick Blanc,. Entering through a Jurassic garden, the visitor commences on a winding tour through Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Shows, music salons, master classes… the museum of Quai Branly is ready to transport you to all four corners of the world, from Morocco to Brazil, from India to Mexico, to discover other cultures and unique artists. As well as a school for documentary filmmaking in the tradition of the direct cinema of Jean Rouch, Richard Leacock and Fred Wiseman, Varan proposes an evening of screenings every three months at the museum.

The gallery installation (one critic dubbed the spotlit cases “monster lighting”) can be disorienting, swiftly shifting between tribes and continents with hidden text panels and interactive stations. That said, the 3,500 objects (out of a total 30,000) on permanent display are incredible. With a little perseverance, you might actually learn about them.

Getting there: The location of the museum Rue 37 Quai Branl 75007 Paris and there is easy access to the museum, by car/metro/bus. Entry to the museum is via rue de l’Université or via Quai Branly.

Located on the sheltered bay side of the Caribbean, it offers all the comforts and amenities of a deluxe resort. Barcelo Costa is located in the magnificent Playa Lindo area of Cancun, Mexico. Only five minutes away from the downtown area and 10 minutes from the Cancun International Airport. Hotel offers 24 hour All Inclusive facilities and a family-friendly vibe.

The Barcelo Costa Hotel Cancun has 357 one and two bedroom guestrooms, each with a beautiful ocean or garden view. Superior rooms have a king-size or 2 double beds, air-conditioning, iron, minibar, coffee maker, telephone, radio and safety deposit box.

Food good and great varied range. Restaurant “Albatros” allows you to eat all you can at your leisure. And Beach Bar: Relax under a Mexican palapa with an amazing view of the Mexican Caribbean.

Amenities: Swimming Pool, Meeting Facilities, Babysitting, Restaurant in Hotel, Kitchen, Scuba Diving, Snorkeling, Water Skiing, Fishing.  The golf course in Pok ta Pok is located just a short distance away.

La Purificadora Boutique Hotel is located in the oldest part of the historic center of Puebla, Mexico.  Designed by Legorreta + Legorreta, the hotel occupies the remains of 1844 stone-walled factory and successfully blends 19th century architecture with modern design. The Boutique Hotel has colonial heritage and is registered as historical patrimony, which must be respected as part of the new design project.

The rooftop terrace bar has become the latest hotspot in Puebla and buzzes till the early hours with a young, stylish crowd. The open-to-the-sky lobby area with a sweeping staircase offers spectacular views of the city. Other highlights include a 30-meter elevated glass-walled swimming pool and a restaurant with an outdoor patio.
 

The 26 rooms, identified by letters of the alphabet, are not huge but the expansive floor-to-ceiling window or balcony door and transparent closets lend a feeling of light and space. The minimalist design blends glass, dark stone and heavy wood features, adding splashes of purple for a more playful feel.

The materials used are: stone from the original construction, old wood that contrast with the contemporary materials such as glass and steel incorporated in to the new design, as well as specially designed floor tiles for the bedrooms floors and onyx in the restrooms. Bottles and glass fragments are also integrated in the hotel’s graphic design.

Tulum is located on the southern edge of Mexico’s Riviera Maya. The place is unique, a strip of beach and jungle peppered with stylish haute-bohemian huts and ancient ruins overlooking the Caribbean. The may site in Tulum may have been also known by the name Zama, meaning city of Dawn.

Tulum has architecture typical of Maya sites. Among some of the more spectacular buildings at the site is the Temple of the Frescoes, that included a lower gallery and a smaller second story gallery. The archeological city of Tulum is compact and best-preserved coastal Maya sites. The modern tourism development along the Mexican Caribbean coastline has made it a popular destination for tourists. A large number of cenotes are located in the Tulum area, such as Maya Blue, Naharon, Temple of Doom, Tortuga, Vacaha, Grand Cenote, Abejas, Nohoch and cave systems.

You can cool down at the small, but sweet Grand Cenote, a freshwater cave, 20 minutes from Tulum. You can snorkel and dive in there, exploring all the usual suspects: stalagmites, stalactites and a lot of tourists just like you. Entrance fee, 600 pesos, masks, snorkels and flippers.

If you need a massage, visit Ocho Tulum, one of the newer so-called eco-resorts. It has two alluring palapas massage rooms planted just above high tide.

Ocho Tulum also offer a brand new yoga studio and vinyasa classes every morning. The town is a hot spot for yoga tourists.

How to get there: Cancun is four hours from New York City. Round-trip prices this month start at under $400. It is cheaper, and easier, to rent a car than to rely on taxis, even though most of beachfront Tulum is a walking town. Tulum is about 75 miles south of Cancun on Route 307. Be extremely aware of the speed limits: they drop precipitously at each town, and the police are vigilant. Photos: Michael Nagle

One of Mexico’s largest islands, Cozumel lies 20 km from the mainland, and 60 km south of Cancun. It’s flat limestone formation shaped like a holster and pierced by dozens of cenotes (water filled sinkholes), many with their own marine forms, which are an extra attractions for swimmers and snorkellers who come to explore the island’s fantastic offshore reefs. Photo by: kristiankristof

You’ll never get a better chance to appreciate Mayan culture so close to good beaches. The biggest Mayan site, San Gervasio (named much latter), was for centuries sacred to Ix Chel, the goddess of fertility, and one of the Yucatan’s most important sanctuaries. There are several others, recovered from jungle and swampy mangrove lagoons now teeming with cormorants, pelicans, primary-coloured tree frogs, iguanas and crocodiles. Photo by: devildiver

You can see 250 species in its clear waters, including the bright blue-and-yellow queen angelfish, the toad fish and enormous sponges like the barrel and elephant ear, which grows to 3,6 m across. Cozumel is fabulously pretty and exotic place, and you should go there with someone who love and watch the sunset. Photo by: Yankee in Texas

When to go: Year-round. Temperatures average 32 degrees Celsius in July and August, and 24 Celsius in December and January. Come for the traditional feasting, rodeos, bullfights music and fairs of the 5-day Festival of El Cedral in late April and May. Population: 73,193. How to get there: By air to San Miguel from Houston, New York, Miami and Mexico City. Photo by: kristiankristof

Photo by: Rob Inh00d

Ometepe is an eco-tourism island with a lack of hotels, but many islanders are opening their homes to low paying guests. Ometepe’s unique double-breasted shape was foretold in a vision to Nahuas and Chorotegas who came from Mexico and made it their sanctuary. Photo by: NicaRagans

The friendly Ometepinos are always willing to show you some fresh delight on the island. You can sample its phenomenal riches on an easy hike on Maderas, the extinct and smaller volcano. Its crater is slightly spooky cold lagoon, set in a thick tropical jungle which really is full of down to the Charco Verde Reserve, where you find the best beaches – and an ancient witch called Chico Largo, who may offer you a life of luxury in return of transmuting your soul into one of the island’s cows. Photo by: Jungle_Boy

Sunset at Punta Jesus Maria, the western tip, where a 5 m wide sandbar projects 1 km into the lake, with water splashing you from both sides. Troops of howler, white-faced and spider monkeys en route to swimming at the jungle San Ramon waterfall, along with hummingbirds and urraca (blue-tailed magpies). Staying quite still, looking at and listening to the living fairytale. Photo by: bhlogiston

When to go: Year-round, so come for the fiestas patronales like Moyogalpa’s Santa Ana in July, when the Baile de las Inditasdance celebrates both Spanish and indigenous culture; or Altagracia’s all-dancing, all-drinking feast of San Diego in November. Ometepe hold more folk and religious festivals than anywhere else in Nicaragua. Population: 35,000. How to get there: By boat from San Jorge on the lake shore near Rivas; or the ferry from Granada – San Carlos, which stops to Ometepe and which you must book in advance. Photo by: Joerg Zwingli

Photo by: mrtraveller

In Mayan times, Ambergis Caye was a trading post supporting 10,000 people. At 40 km long and up to 1,5 km wide, it’s the largest of 200 cayes studding the coastline of Belize and lies off the southernmost tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. In fact the Mayans created the island by digging a channel to provide a trade route and border between Belize and Mexico. Then and now there’s only one major settlement San Pedro, built over Mayan ruins and home to the most of the population. Photo by: CastAShadow

Visitors flock to Ambergris Caye because the 310 km Belize Barrier Reef, second only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, runs parallel to the island only 370 m from the beach. It’s one of the world’s greatest dive sites with every feature of caves, walls, columns, cathedrals and bridges that fantasy can dream up. Photo by: mathomas81

The island itself is a wildlife bonanza of white, red and black mangroves and buttonwood trees; littoral forest plant like gumbo, limbo, sapodilla, fig, coco plum and palmeto; egrets, orioles, kiskadees, cinnamon hummingbirds, blue herons and rose-throated becards among some 300 species; and forests full of deer, peccaries, raccoons and occasional jaguar. And the night life in San Pedro is excellent. Photo by: CastAShadow

When to go: November to June. Population: 8,000. How to get there: By air via Belize City to San Pedro, by boat (fast ferry) from Belize City to San Pedro. Photo by: Cosmojojo

Luis Barrag?n is easily the most influential architect of the 20th century in Mexico. Born in Guadalajara, he created an architectural style that combined modernism with the colonial and pre-Hispanic architecture. The works of Luis Barragan have had an important impact especially on the design of garden and urban design.

The Luis Barragan’s masterpiece is the House in the suburbs of Mexico City. Built in 1948 it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004. Beyond its stark facade, the Barragan House is a showplace for his use of color, form, light, and shadow.

The house has a total area of 1,161 m2, consists of a ground floor and two upper storeys. The back of the House opens onto the garden creating tranquility away from the urban surroundings. Barragan believed that the garden was just as important as the building itself. This unique building is currently listed with Sotheby’s Realty at a price of $9.95 million.

Today the house is a museum honoring the Barragan’s work. Visitors may tour the living areas, design studio and garden areas, but photographs of it are hard to come by. The Museum is open: Monday to Friday from 10 to 14:00 hrs and 16:00 to 18:00 hrs, and Saturday from 10:00 hrs a 13:00 hrs.

Hotel Basico has a brave concept consists of modeling the entire aesthetic on the industrial oil rigs of 1950 in Mexico. The structure is situated on Playa del Carmen’s exclusive Fifth Avenue shopping and restaurant strip. The hotel offers rooms looking out onto a central mess hall-like restaurant area (best fish tacos in the ‘hood).

Above is a rooftop cocktail bar that includes luxurious cabanas made from the back of old trucks with inbuilt mattresses, two concrete petroleum tanks that serve as swimming pools. From the pools you can sip old-school margaritas and look down on the crowds below and out to the Caribbean. Breezy lounge music and handsome hotel staff waft the building.

Each room has exposed pipes with fire hydrant-style taps run along the walls. An industrial-strength bath and the king-sized, multi-purpose bed (perched on an elevated palate) sit in the middle of the room. Everything is exposed and raw; the toilet is the only thing in the room concealed. There are rubber curtains on the floor-to-ceiling window and pulley chain detailing throughout. The signage around the hotel references the typography of Mexican taxis from the 1950s. Superbly construction-worker chic!

Be sure to borrow the hotel snorkeling gear and visit the surrounding cenotes (underwater caverns teaming with colorful fish).

Lima – where – in Peru! Lima’s culturally rich past gives a solid foundation for its design future. Lima is one of the world’s driest cities and very often is shrouded in fog. Due to chronic drought, people there have been building huge structures for thousand of years. The architecture in Peru abound in Pre-Incan ruins, but today design scenes are especially vibrant. Thanks to the richness of minerals in the Andes, Peru’s economy has been developing very fast for the past six years. A new wealth and stability have mixed to give young Peruvians a chance to focus on building.

Lima has arid climate as its seismic volatility. Eartquakes have repeatedly caused severe damage to Lima. Even though Peru is a country of earthquakes, people in poor areas don’t have the resources to build in responsible ways, making whole district of the city susceptible to sudden demolition.

Lima has never been downtown. Lima has always been Miraflores and San Isidro. They are both to the south of downtown, near the ocean and are filled with wonderful parks. Parque Redondo is a hidden jewel in San Isidro, an area with many examples of modern architecture. Miraflores itself has always been more chilled and stuffy, because it started out as a beach resort. So the modern architecture there is more bright. Miraflores is the best district in Lima, because everything is close by and you can walk, which for me is very important.

Many designers fled Peru during the political chaos of the 1980s and developed a greater appreciation of their own culture. So that they’re trying to keep the past by mixing traditional materials with contemporary designs. But Peru still not managed to create a national architecture like Mexico. They are exceptions, of course. Overall, things are changing for the better in Lima.

Another of the city’s many parks, Parque Union Europea makes use of a number of levels.

From outdoors to in, Restaurante La Mar specializes in seafood, particularly the Peruvian classic, ceviche.

The Plaza San Martin.

Designers and architects currently enjoy a heretofore-unseen prosperity in Peru. Fashion designer Sumy Kujon makes her clothes from alpaca wool, incorporating traditional craftsmanship into contemporary fashion.