Buenos Aires and cruise down the coast of Argentina

This wasn't our first trip to Buenos Aires, and it won't be the last, most likely. The last time we were here, it was my birthday and Doug and I went out to a tango show, which was then cut short because Carter got violently ill back at the hotel and we had to return. And then Doug caught whatever bug he had and was miserably sick for days. Doug wasn't all that enthusiastic to return after that experience, but the timing of the cruise meant we had nearly a week to hang out in the city.

Cuzco and Machu Picchu

We arrived in Cuzco about a week ago, expecting a contrast from the Iquitos area. And wow, the areas are so different that it's stunning. The amount of cultural and geographic diversity in a country as small as Peru is simply amazing.

When you arrive in Cuzco, the first thing that hits you is the altitude. The city is at around 12,000 feet, and at first the simple act of walking around takes your breath away. It's completely bizarre to walk up a very slight incline and find yourself panting like you've just sprinted that distance instead. The locals have traditionally drunk mate de coca (tea made from coca leaves) or chewed the coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness, and this remedy is definitely encouraged for visitors. It's a bit like caffeine in its effect when you drink the tea, though chewing the leaves will leave the side of your mouth feeling a little numb. Whether it actually helps with the altitude or not, I can't say. I drank a lot of it and Doug didn't, and I'm not sure if our experience was any different!

Vlog #1: Santiago

My first attempt at editing together a vlog! Future vlogs will be much more interesting, I promise. ;-)

The Amazon, part 2

We're riding in a small boat down a creek off of the Napo River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon. The sun is hot and the humidity stifling, and the movement of air over us as the boat motors upstream is a relief. We're looking for a good spot for catching piranha, says our guide, Ricardo.  Doug and I attempted to fish for them on our visit 18 years prior, with no luck. I don't expect it to be different today; they're hard little buggers to catch. We pass houses, small platforms with thatched roofs and almost no furnishings. Small children swimming at the water's edge pause to wave as we pass. They're used to seeing tourists, but the sight of a child as young as Carter seems to surprise them.

The Amazon

Eighteen years ago, Doug and I were looking for an exotic destination for our honeymoon, and after a lot of thought, we decided to go to South America. (This was 1995, and South America was quite a lot more exotic then than it is now.) One of the places we decided we wanted to see was the Amazon rainforest, and we chose one of the only ecotourism companies that was operating in that area at the time: Explorama. The conditions were rustic, but hey – we were in the jungle! My memory of those five days we spent with Explorama was that it was hot and humid and there were lots of mosquitos, and that we saw amazing things.

Fast forward nearly two decades. When we decided that we would spend a couple of months of this trip in South America, we immediately thought about going back to the Amazon. There are many more companies now, but we really wanted to go with Explorama again. We even decided to stay in the same lodges, just to see how much they had changed.

Easter Island to Iquitos

We're currently about an hour and a half up the Amazon River from Iquitos, Peru. Doug and I were in this area when we went on our honeymoon almost 18 years ago, and the fact that I have bars on my cellphone right now is pretty insane. I didn't even have bars on Easter Island, standing next to the tower! We're staying at a very nice lodge right now and tomorrow will head even further into the rainforest to something more rustic. This is my last chance to update until late next week.

I wanted to post a few more pictures from our last couple of days on Easter Island. We spent our last full day hanging out and relaxing. We took Carter down to a tiny local swimming spot so he could play in the sand and swim, and he had a blast. Check out the moai in the background.

Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

Prior to this trip, I couldn't have pointed to Easter Island on the globe. I knew it was part of Chile (from a Chilean folkloric dinner show we attended on a mid-90s visit to Santiago, half of which was Polynesian dancing, to my great surprise), and I knew it was quite a ways from the coast of South America, but I didn't really know much more about it than that.

When we planned this trip, we wanted to visit favorite places as well as new ones, and Easter Island was on the list of places that sounded very interesting to see. My mental image was of a semi-barren, sort of gloomily beautiful island, not unlike the Azores, but much more sparsely populated. I knew the big thing to do was to go see the giant head statues, which I'd always heard were shrouded in mystery. We planned to spend five nights there, which I worried might be a bit much. After all, we'd go out and look at the statues in a day, probably, and then what?