Me in the hot springs There is something disconcerting about that helplessness you feel when you learn you will spend the next two days without access to email or social media. You don’t want to believe you are one of those people so hopelessly addicted to your phone that its loss causes anxiety. But you …
Chile Part 2: Caleta Tortel, the end of the road.
We arrived at Caleta Tortel and parked at the edge of this tiny town near the end of the Carretera Austral, having driven another 12 miles on a dirt side road till we reached the porous coastline of Patagonia. We strapped on backpacks with our stuff for two days, and started walking. Walking to our …
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Chile Part 1: From Graffiti to Paradise
Chile is almost as long as the US is wide, but it snakes along the Pacific Ocean for 2700 miles, hemmed in by its portion of the 5,500-mile Andes range. Most of its 17 million people live in the center, within a couple of hours of Santiago and at its extreme ends are sparsely populated …
The Sierra Norte: Walking in the land of the Zapotec
Capulalpám de Mendez is a pueblo mágico perched high in the Sierra Norte, reached by a curving, ascending two-hour drive from Oaxaca City. In these mountains, live people whose original language is Zapotec, not Spanish, who fight to preserve their traditions, and who live with a profound understanding of nature. View toward the villages Capulalpám …
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There’s No Place Like…Home
The view from my home Not long before the world went into lockdown, I traded the city for the country. For almost 40 years, I lived on busy Philadelphia streets, awakened at times by sirens and horns. For all those years, I reveled in the messiness and color of urban life and prowled many corners …