In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead, gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrst, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. --Hiram Bingham, the "discoverer" of the "Lost City of the Incas" I cannot even imagine what Bingham must have thought [View Full Entry]

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Saying goodbye to Iquitos, I headed down south to Arequipa for the classic gringo trail, that takes you on a loop through the Andes Mountains around to Puno and ending in Cuzco to see Machu Pichhu. There are few cities I´ve seen as gorgeously (albeit dangerously) situated as Arequipa--the towering Mount Misti, capped with snow year around, stands against the backdrop of the city--several other famous peaks surroung the city, creating a beautiful landscape for sunrise and sunset when the sun´s rays play off the mountains and the clouds. Of course, this is a hotspot for volcanic activity and earthquakes, and [View Full Entry]

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Cebiche: I was told that it would be a crime, a shameful and unforgivable crime, to leave the country of Peru without having experienced one of the country's most beloved national foods. Cebiche is a dish of raw seafood--fish, shrimp, and stuffed crab in this particular dish--marinated with fresh onion, garlic, cilantro, and lemon juice, all sitting on top of sweet potato, yuca, potato, and my personal favorite: choclos, a type of corn seed that does not pop upon roasting--rather, the inside becomes soft and crunchy, like pop corn, only more savory and a bit saltier. Over the weekend, one of [View Full Entry]

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To get to Mazan, the town where the road from Iquitos ends, you first make your way through the chaotic Puerto de Productores--a dock where the local vendors for fruits and meats begin their morning around 5am--the boats come in filled with plaintains or other fruits, fish or chickens, and up and down the rickety wooden staircase you see a file of men marching with burlap sacks filled with goods weighing likely around 70-80 pounds--or people with up to 6 chickens in each hand, held by the legs and upside down (this apparently calms them), or did you know you could [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend, I headed 140km upriver on the Rio Amazonas to a lodge on the Yanayaku River--the lodge partners with a local community, giving them a part of the proceeds from the company in exchange for conserving the large birds and mammals in the area that have gone extinct in other parts of the Amazon. As a result, this expanse of the Amazon is one of the few places closes to a major city where you can still see caimans, dolphins, sloths, monkeys, jaguars, and more. It was a lazy weekend of hiking, sitting in a hammock with a book, or [View Full Entry]

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For my first foray into the field, I started out in Mazan by meeting up with my two guides--a husband and wife couple that were farmers and knew the area well. Janet was a short, stout, and hardy woman who spent most of the time skipping through the jungle in her flip flops but would start whimpering whenever we encountered a cow. Yes, cows--animals that are larger than us to be fair, but can also be scared away by wielding so much as a large twig in their direction. From Mazan, we took a boat to Tiwinza, a tiny docking village [View Full Entry]

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The first thing I knew about Iquitos is that it's the largest city in the world that you can't get to by land, meaning either you fly (and flights can be difficult because the airport can be shut down from time to time if the local vulture population acts up and attacks an incoming plane) or you take a boat down the Amazon river a few hundred kilometers from the nearest city that is linked to Lima by road. What to say about Iquitos? It's an island of sorts, since you cannot get into or out of it easily, so it [View Full Entry]

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When Francisco Pizarro first chose his sight for the capital of Peru, "La Cuidad de los Reyes" (City of Kings), it seemed the perfect location--three rivers converged by the city, providing access to almost the entire country, its harbor on the coast ensured trade with Spain and other countries,' and the lush fields and mild temperature made it a pleasant place to live. What he probably did not see was Lima's proximity to a major fault line, and how the city would be destroyed by a powerful earthquake in 1687, again in 1746 (with an accompanied tsunami), a 1970 earthquake resulting [View Full Entry]

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Well advised by wise previous travelers, I left Cairns the morning after I arrived and headed straight for Cape Tribulation, named by explorer James Cook in 1770 because that's when their ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef and was damaged so badly it took weeks to repair (Cook sent two of his men up the tallest peak to see how far the Reef extended--the men never returned, and he christened that mountain "Mount Sorrow." Clearly, the man did not like the place). Cape Tribulation today is a laid-back little town nestled within Daintree National Park--yet another World Heritage [View Full Entry]

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Tired of the 4 wheel drive cars and buses, the swags, the drunken 20-year olds that dominate many of the backpacker trips here in Australia, I was looking forward to my weeklong bushwalk in Watarrka National Park--the chance to strap everything you need in life to your back and hike into one of the most beautiful areas of the red center. In the bush, life is about the simple pleasures--watching patiently as the finches dive into a nearby pool of water, finding aboriginal art in caves that could be hundreds to thousands of years old, marveling at the tracks left [View Full Entry]

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