The shimmering sheet of cobalt water of Lake Titicaca (3830 meters/12,565 feet) is the world’s highest navigable lake and the islands upon it are renowned for their tranquility, beauty and indigenous communities. Thus, we knew doing a simple day trip or overnight, as most tourists do, was not an option for us. We wanted to witness the living tradition of their…
The Grand Canyon is far from being the deepest canyon in the world. In fact, the beast we trucked 37 km (23 miles) all the way down, around, and back up, is double the depth and the world’s second deepest canyon at up to 4160 meters (13,640 feet.) (The first deepest is also in Peru not far from here and…
The UNESCO World Heritage city of Arequipa is Peru’s second biggest city, but a mere 1/10th the size of Lima. However, it’s very competitive and packs a big punch in terms of architectural splendor, historical significance and culinary gifts. In fact, it's a culinary powerhouse on par with Lima. All types of Peruvian cuisine are represented here, as well as…
We sometimes feel a bit overdosed on visiting churches, mosques, shrines and temples despite the fact there are so many beautiful ones in the world. This is why we debated if we were going to visit The Monastery of Santa Catalina (S40 or $10/ticket.) However, Lonely Planet promised it shouldn’t be missed “even if you’re overdosed on colonial edifices.” This…
To be honest, we had kinda written off Bogota after our visit in 2014. It was kind of a two-days-and-done sorta of place…check out Plaza Bolivar, sweat your way to the top of Monserrate (10,000 foot/3100 meter city viewpoint), and have an amble through El Museo de Oro. (Museum of Gold). We learned quickly that the plethora of small towns…
Zipaquirá is a town that not many visitors to Colombia take time to embrace. They simply pile onto a day bus from Bogotá, take a quick spin through the town and head straight for the cathedral of salt, which is one of the biggest tourist draws in the country (and we thought, well worth it). To get there, we were coming…
Barichara is without a doubt one of our favorite places on earth. Not only charming…., but utterly dreamy…. quixotic …. a starry-eyed hamlet. Its Spanish colonial architecture, uniform red-tile roofs, undulating wide cobble-stone streets, and white-washed homes with perfect peekaboo windows…all emanating the aura from the pages of a romance novel. And, for this good reason, Barichara is often the…
Folded amongst the rolling Andes and undulating countryside of Colombia’s Santander region, Guane is a colonial Colombian pueblo utterly lost in time. When we took our first steps into the village, it was eerily quiet. Soundless. No children. No dogs. No chickens. Few people. The narrow, cobbled streets were all all lumpy and lovely and the white-washed houses seem sublimely…
