Blogs from South America - page 7

Undoubtedly the greatest challenge I’ve taken on in my life I’ll clarify a couple things here before beginning. First, I am writing entirely of my own experience in this blog, as my Dreamchaser soulmate Stan opted out of this particular adventure. Secondly, I’d like to state that, although I have done a few hikes in the past, I am not a devoted trekker. Not even close. I’ll take a bike, scooter, or kayak any day, instead of walking. The last - and only - time I even did an over night hiking trip was when hiking the Kalalau Trail on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, but that was close to fifty years ago, when I was about twenty years old, and I believe there were some mushrooms enhancing that hike. 🤣 So I think its fair ... read more

Into the twilight zone. Dusk and dawn, the bookends of dreamworld. Where desires and destinies might dance and duel. Where you can't go, unless you have gone. And it is still only 50° south of the equator. The same parallel, on the Arctic side, as London, Kiev, Vancouver, with Moscow, Berlin and Stockholm etc even further north. Yet this is already 1,776km further south than Cape Town (34°), and 444km beyond Invercargill (46°), New Zealand's southern tip. A reminder that the globe is somewhat top land-heavy. Would not physics prescribe the ball folllowed gravity and rolled over so the continental chunks of Asia, Europe and North America could play ballast to the sphere? Fickle cartographers, indeed. Comandante Luis Piedrabuena, a little village, population 6,000, named after an Argentinian nautical pioneer of the Patagonian re... read more

After a wonderful month in Nicaragua, I have moved down to Brazil. I am here to meet with a non profit Instituto Dom, that works with women in the slums, or Favelas as they are called here of Rio de Janeiro. They have been providing business coaching, business skills, and financial literacy for several years. They have a desire to provide microloans, but have not been able to find an opportunity that was non predatory. I’m here to meet with them to see if I can be a solution to that problem. Favelas stated in Rio in the late 1800s after the Canudos War. The soldiers came to Rio and settled into makeshift accommodations to wait for a payment from the government for their service. The money was never received and they never left. In the ... read more

Our rest day started off with hotel breakfast (so I did have to set an alarm). We did a little exploring after, and found a cute park with very informational signs near the hotel. We couldn't have asked for better weather! Sunny and warm, about 70, with no wind. Part of our wandering included a typical part of travel for us: stop at an ATM to pull out some local currency for cash on hand. An odd thing happened-- every ATM at the bank looked like it would work, then said it couldn't fulfill our request. We even tried very low withdrawal amounts. Nothing. Everyone takes credit card, so we just moved on for now. After a little more wandering, it was about lunchtime. We stopped at a nice place for empanadas. Oh my gosh they ... read more

Wednesday was our big hike. Patagonia is known for a few things, but hiking is a big part of it. They have a huge nature preserve in Chile called Torres del Paine national park. There are numerous day hikes you can do and many varieties of camping, but we set our sights on the most famous hike: Mirador Las Torres. We left the Airbnb at 6am (so nice not to have to repack before leaving!) in order to make it to the trailhead by 8. There are a few places you could stay closer, or in the park, but they were extremely expensive. Despite the drive we were happy with our choice to stay in Puerto Natales. We had read that it can be a 6-9 hour hike, so we wanted to start early. We got ... read more