All Entries in the "South America" Catégorie
This lost world
Long referred to as the Lost World, the nearby Mount Roraima and its grand tapui boasts four hundred meter tall cliffs that formed the setting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic 1912 novel The Lost World.
Dancing in El Dorado
Wander the streets of a sweltering Cartagena, a fortress of a city by the sea on the northern coast of Colombia and you will be taken in by its colourful facades, flower-laden wooden balconies and airy rooftop patios.
Bitter-sweet contrasts
As the trip progressed, I began to suspect the reason for the foul odor. I had traveled thousands of kilometers to catch the hangover from Rio’s famed Carnaval. I’m glad to have missed the world’s biggest party in early March. I am not good in crowds. I felt, however, like I had just missed a party, or more accurately, having arrived the morning after a Dionysian orgy. In Rio, Carnaval is taken seriously.
Mysteries in the sky
The early morning mist dissipates in the landscape of palm trees and lush green forests framed by inhospitable snow-capped mountains. This journey taken by innumerable tourists every day is the very same route that explorer Hiram Bingham took in late 1911.
More than Galapagos
Ecuador boasts, however, a hard to beat jewel. The pristine but ecologically fragile Galápagos Islands, indisputably the most illustrious tourism magnet for Ecuador. These idyllic islands 600 miles off of Ecuador’s coast were made famous by English naturalist Charles Darwin. His visit to these islands in 1835 inspired the earth-shattering ‘Origin of the Species’, a publication that altered man’s conception of the origins of life.
Walking gently in paradise
He introduced himself as Klever Viera, the director the Grupo El Arrebato. Kléver had intently piercing eyes, a majestic form and a mysterious presence. He could have been the devil himself, or a suave Casanova. There was something very powerful and masculine about him. Next to him was an ever so beautiful, feminine, attractive dancer, Maria Sol Rosero. And there I was, feeble and useless, like a dehydrated apple among an abundance of exotic fruit.