Holiday romance – really?
Feeling hot? Who actually looks their best on holiday?
Holiday romances have been a hot topic of conversation at Handbag Towers over the past few weeks. However, I can’t help but find the whole concept a little odd – after all, who actually looks their best when they’re on holiday in a hot country?
I’m sure there are hundreds, nay thousands of women out there who look tanned, toned and better than ever when they’re abroad. However, I’ve never met any of them. I can unequivocally state that I’m at my least attractive when plonked in a tropical climate and left to stew. Stripey sunburn, millions of insect bites, frizzy hair and a sweaty face leave me looking like a cross between Bryan May and Germaine Greer in the I’m a Celebrity jungle, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
On a recent holiday to Venezuela with three female friends it was easy to spot the European tourists a mile off. The locals were perfectly tanned and looked like they spent their lives in a bikini. The tourists were covered in badly applied sunblock, had bright red shoulders and couldn’t get out of the sea without falling over and loosing their sunhats in the surf (yes, I’m using myself as the example here).
Yet for some reason, this did nothing to diminish our popularity with the local men. No matter how rough, insane or ill-prepared for any situation we looked, they were fascinated by my (increasingly infected) mosquito bites and marveled at our pallid skin.
We certainly weren’t the only ones either. On our first night, we headed to The Only Bar In Town, where the local boys were ignoring the advances of the über-tanned Shakira types (Venezuela has produced more beauty queens than any other country in the world) in order to teach a couple of sunburnt German backpackers how to shake their booties (incidentally the Shakira types looked murderous at this, and hips don’t lie – German girls should never salsa).
And as for my tiny blonde-haired, green-eyed friend Tammy, she was surrounded by men everywhere we went, including at the airport on our last day, where a member of the drugs squad ran round the airport trying to find out how to say ‘you have beautiful eyes’ in English so he could chat her up before he’d let her board the plane.
And the moral of this story? Clearly people’s definition of sexy can vary wildly from one part of the world to another, but you can never underestimate the allure of being a bit different. A bronzed Amazonian goddess might be the most exotic thing in the world if you’re in Peckham, but to a South American hottie, a slightly pear-shaped blonde from the Home Counties can be just as fascinating.
Find out what to expect from the local Lotharios with Handbag’s guide to Holiday romances.
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