One week after the depths of the Amazon, we headed for the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the Urubamba River. The Urubamba starts above Cusco in the Altiplano and ends in the Amazon basin. Cusco, the seat of the Incan empire designed in the shape of a puma, sits just west and above the river valley. This area of Peru is similar to Rome, in that you can't walk a block, take a hike or bike ride without running into a remnant of the old civilization. Incans worshiped rocks. Any large rock formation was either turned into a huaca, temple, or [View Full Entry]

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Ahhhhh, la selva Amazona. One realization from this trip is how much we love the jungle - for a visit. We could see it being hard as a full-time gig. But it is hard to find a place more different than where we come from - one that has more to discover, to appreciate, and to teach us - more than the variety of plants, animals, and civilizations than the jungle. Every cut out of the jungle feels like a gash out of the heart of the earth, something that doesn't belong and won't survive. By contrast, the eco-lodge that we [View Full Entry]

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(It's okay. You can laugh.) We headed to the famous Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America. Our Lonely Planet guidebook states (in different chapters) that it is the highest navigable lake in the world, and that it is often erroneously described as the highest navigable lake. (?!?) One thing is for sure, it is the most laughed at name in all of South America. Lake Titicaca is also the foundation of the great Tiwanaku civilization, possibly the biggest civilization you've never heard of. As such, the Lake is also the home of one of the most sacred spots in [View Full Entry]

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Mountains. Big mountains. Big huge green valleys. Mountain biking. Trekking. Not a bad birthday. After trudging through the big cities of Bolivia, these two country mice decided to head out of town in search of some greenery. The bus ride from La Paz was 4 hours in a little van, probably the longest Kati's ever held her bladder. We headed into the altiplano where farmers worked their tiny fields by hand, until we entered into the clouds. It seemed we were about to run right into Cerro Illampu, a 21,000+ft snow-capped peak, until at the last moment we veered around it [View Full Entry]

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Bolivia is a world apart from Argentina and Chile. Its people are oftentimes poor, but not hungry. Big toothless smiles on sun-worn brown faces with fat cheeks full of coca under strange hats - that’s Bolivia. The cities we visited were colonial (Sucre) and haphazard (La Paz). Both are the capital of Bolivia. Both dislike each other. We have been in the tropics for several weeks, but in Bolivia we have yet to be below 9000 feet in elevation. Bolivia is a step back in time. The main highway from Uyuni (a major tourist destination for the salt flats) to Potosi [View Full Entry]

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We left the low and wet for the high and dry. From Bahia Inglesa, we traveled to the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama, which sits in a bowl of a valley up against the Andes and the Bolivian border. We stayed there for several nights before heading across the border to Bolivia via a three day 4WD tour over the salt flats and high, really high, deserts of the altiplano. In San Pedro, we stayed at a crumby hostel, but one that let us cook dinners with our new friends Robin from Canada and Jun from England. For dinner [View Full Entry]

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(mostly by Mark) From Valpo, we toured the Pacific coast of Chile. On a beautiful bus ride (yes, they do exist) we had the mountains on our right and we watched the waves crash on many a beach to our left. As I write this, we are in a golf ball. It is a dome made of tarp right on the white sand beach of Bahia Inglesa, where I am about to go for a run. This is our third major beach location of the past week, and with an excursion to the mountains, we have really enjoyed Norte Chico, Chile. [View Full Entry]

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(written by Kati) Yes, friends, we are back in South America and enjoying its wonders once again. It's true that we first went to Valparaíso and Santiago in January, neglected our blogging, and returned in March to these two cities to pretend like we never left. Can you blame us? Valparaíso, or Valpo is a densely populated and developed coastal city about 2 hours from Santiago where we had the privilege of having 2 separate visits with Jose and Nicole, friends of my sister Elizabeth from Boston. Jose is chileno and Nicole is americana and the pair moved to Valpo to [View Full Entry]

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After leaving the Futaleufu valley, we made our way back north, said goodbye to our beloved Bariloche, and crossed the frontera in a unique way into the Los Lagos section of Chile. This area is full of lush green valleys, in contrast to the dry plains of Argentina, and the area is full of sweet volcanoes! Turns out, in this middle area of the Andes, most of the big mountains are in Argentina, and Chile has volcanoes and smaller, but more verdant, mountains (Chile being on the wet side of the Andes) - and volcanoes- a chain of them forming the [View Full Entry]

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River! The Futaleufu is a world class, big-water, glacier fed, turquoise and beautiful river that flows from the eastern side of the Andes in Argentina, but then swings backward from its natural easterly course and cuts the Andes in two by heading back to Chile and making a short and steep plunge to the Pacific. While not as long or deep as the Grand Canyon, the water and rapids in the Fu are of similar size. While not having any famous mountains nearby, the canyon systems of the valley are deep, green, forested valleys filled with glaciers and jutting volcanic peaks. [View Full Entry]

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