Uros Islands Lake Titicaca
Under : Latin America, Peru, South America
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a series of stories from our work and travel in South America December 2009 through February 2010. Every effort has been made to provide updated information.
After an amazing month of visiting Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, it was time for us to head south toward Bolivia. Luckily, our route would take us by scenic Lake Titicaca.
Lake Titcaca sits on the Peru/Bolivia border and is the world’s highest navigable lake for commercial traffic. At, 12,500′ the climate is cold and dry, and living conditions are challenging. Indigenous people inhabit several islands worth visiting in the lake. One of the more interesting sites is the floating islands of Uros.
They are called the floating islands, because they are actually floating islands, built from reeds cut from the shallow areas of the lake. The reeds are piled high enough that they float, with the downside being that they become waterlogged and need to have more reeds piled on. Walking on the island feels like walking on a large water bed.Read More
Iguazu Falls, Argentina
Under : Argentina, South America
Toward the end of our work and travel in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina we had a week or two to decide where to visit from our Buenos Aires base. Pantanal? Estancias? Uruguay or Montevideo? How about one of the natural wonders of the world, Iguazu Falls?
Iguazu isn’t exactly next door to Buenos Aires. Only Patagonia would be further out of the neighborhood. Which meant airfare there would be expensive (foreigners pay a higher rate for domestic airfare than Argentines). But, we discovered we could take our favorite mode of travel to Iguazu – the cama bus. We could buy a first-class bus ticket which included seats that folded nearly flat into a bed; sparkling wine and proscuitto for starters, and malbec and beef for dinner. A traveler can read or watch one of a couple of movies on the private screen at each seat and arrive in the morning. The cost was around $180 USD round trip compared to $350 USD round trip airfare. Today the costs are $310 USD bus RT and $464 USD airfare RT.
Lots of colorful creatures in the humid climate.
Iguazu Falls are on the Iguazu River which forms the border between Argentina and Brazil. It is considered one of the premiere parks in South America, both for the natural beauty and the impressive, natural infrastructure the Argentine government has installed. The falls span a linear distance of nearly 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles) with the river broken up by islands on the fall’s edges. Sturdy, metal platforms reach between the islands, taking visitors to the most impressive falls.
Approaching the Devil’s Throat
Most of the river pours through a narrow horseshoe-shaped area called the Devils Throat (garganta del diablo), which is 82 meters high and 700 meters long. The sound and the spray are impressive. I forgot my umbrella.Read More
HoPe Foundation in Cusco Peru
Under : Peru, South America
From a humble soup kitchen started by a couple from the Netherlands in 1991 in Cusco, Peru, the HoPe Foundation (Stichting HoPe in Dutch) has grown into one of the most sustainable, efficient NGOs (non-governmental agency) I have ever seen.
A few years ago, while Jennifer and I were working on photo projects in Peru, we learned of a foundation that built schools and helped start community projects among the Quechua people of the Peruvian Andes. Descendants of the Inca, they live above 12,000 feet (3,000 meters) where only they, llamas and potatoes thrive. Walter and his original partner saw the need for schools for the mountain-dwelling Quechua, who often migrated to Cusco looking for work. With no skills and no education, they eventually lived in slums, begging for a living or posing for pictures for tourists (nearly the same thing).
From the start in 1997, the foundation insisted that each village take part in their school’s construction, doing most of the labor. The foundation would pay for the materials, then the teacher’s salaries for one year and then the village was responsible for their salaries. The demand for the solid, efficient buildings was overwhelming. Today, they have built more than 150 schools. The curriculum includes history, math, science and current events. More importantly, the classes are taught in the native language and in Spanish. A little English is thrown in to broaden the student’s learning experience.Read More
Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni
The highway into town was lined with wire fences and scrub brush adorned with hundreds of plastic bags, setting the stage for the grim town of Uyuni. Other than being annoyed by the howling wind, and hoping it would stop or calm down, we weren’t fazed by the ugliness of Uyuni, because we were here for a four-day trip through the magnificent Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest and highest salt flats.
Our arrival during the first week of January was perfect. It was during the rainy season and the vast salt flats had been turned into a vast lake with a surreal mirror effect.