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EcoCamp, Patagonia
For the first time since we'd been traveling together, we'd had a trip that wasn't fully about the beautiful places we'd seen, although Patagonia has more to offer than the whole world combined. But it really was about the community we had formed there during those five days--the friendships, the language barriers, the communal meals, the hard treks up difficult mountains, the late-night stories shared as secrets, the bonds. It was the most special place and an even more special moment for us. Our hearts are sealed there, forever.
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Valle de la Luna, Chile
It was our first day in the Atacama Desert. We had driven an hour’s dusty road from sleepy Cálama to sleepier San Pedro, eaten lunch, and dropped our bags at our hotel. After stopping at the only gas station in 200 miles (truly) and filling up on diesel* and Gatorade, we headed to one of the region’s most famous sites: Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley. *yes, our car only took diesel As I’ve explained in prior posts, the Atacama Desert is one vast, expansive, uncompromising desert. It is so similar to an extraterrestrial landscape that scientists from all over the world perform experiments on its soil to learn…
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The Salt Flats of the Atacama Desert
The vastness of the sky, the clarity of the air and the flat, endless horizon are disorienting. It's hard to tell which direction you came from or where you're going. Everywhere you look, the earth is a rough, grainy field of rust-colored salt deposits.
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Santiago, Chile
"Night, snow and sand compose the form of my slender homeland . . . ."
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Hiking Torres del Paine, Patagonia
In Patagonia a storm clears and the alpine monoliths stand like teeth set in a dragon’s jaw . . . The message broadcast from the peaks is as jarring as the scream of a train whistle. ‘Show yourself,’ they say.
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Lagunas Miscanti and Miñiques, Chile
We were thrilled to see some of its natural residents make an appearance on the day we visited: flamingos, horned coot (a big, black bird that nests in the shorelines), rheas (a huge flightless bird that's a distant relative of the ostrich), and vicuñas.
