Folded within the lush Ecuadorian cloud forest, and only two hours by bus from Quito, one can find the sparkling jewel of Mindo Valley. It is known for being replete with natural beauty, chocolate tours, adventure activities and enough wild and bird life to fill its own Audubon book. Where we Stayed We arrived for two nights and chose Hostelería…
Day One: Sigchos to Isinlivi For those who have been following awhile, you may remember our disastrous and slippery sludge down Peru’s Salkantay Trail last March. This is when Mandy began a six-month war with her right foot. As of May 2023, we’re quite happy to say that she completed her first multi-day trek since of 36 kilometers and although…
After a night in Panama City due to circumstance not desire, our friend Carol picked us up (in a car!) from our hotel to whisk us to our next destination of Valle de Antón, two hours away. The “Valley” is a pueblo tucked inside the heart of an ancient crater and surrounded by mountains and lush cloud forest. Because of…
Göreme Ridge Trail Although we loved the unique experiences like cave hotels and hot air balloons, the reason we loved Cappadocia the most was the buckets of hiking opportunities. To kick off our eight nights in this whimsical region, we stayed in the tourist hot spot of Göreme for two nights and almost immediately went on the ridge walk up…
We came to Peru from Colombia basically because we wanted to experience it, particularly Machu Picchu, before all the crowds return following COVID. While this had proven to be pretty successful, we knew that planning our trekking routes would be a little more challenging considering it was low (aka rainy) season, which runs from December-March. However, we also read that…
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…
For us, 10 days in Boquete (Bo-ket-tay) felt about right and it was a good place to switch out our flip flops for our hiking shoes. This highly livable town of around 25,000 is tucked into the highlands along the mountainous spine of Panama and is known for a cool, fresh climate, rich soil, remarkable coffee, buckets of natural surroundings,…
Mandy remembers spinning her new globe at age seven and being awed by all the “bumpy” bits on the round sphere indicating mountains. Among those bumps was one country that fascinated her more than any other...little Nepal because it was seemingly ALL bumps. At that age, she vowed to go...to Nepal...on the basis that it was cool and bumpy. Regardless,…
