While the people of Tarija, Bolivia will keep you hanging around, it’s the wine – surprisingly drinkable and made with grapes grown at an elevation of 6,000 feet — that Tarija is best known for.
Travel
Bolivia Travel: Tarija, the City of Smiles and Hospitality
Oh, Tarija. The women there are beautiful. It’s their smiles. They are the dream of every Bolivian man.
— David, our Bolivian guide for the Salar de Uyuni tour, delivers an animated testimonial for one of Bolivia’s lesser-known cities.
Cafés with outdoor seating line palm tree-dotted squares; cars broadcast opera from open windows as they cruise the plaza; wine lists measure longer than food menus; tablitas (ham, cheese and olive tapas plates) are standard fare; and smiles are in ample supply.
A Mediterranean-style culture smack in the middle of South America? Tarija is not your typical Bolivian town.
Thanksgiving in Bolivia, MacGyver* in the Kitchen
Thanksgiving may be over, but I’m still thankful.
We admit it – we are the worst bloggers. Many wrote their Thanksgiving posts a week or two before turkey day while others prepared something to publish on the day itself.
Then there’s us.
We intended – we really did – to publish a reflection yesterday, but life took over and filled our day with a raft of experiences and emotions.
From Ecuador to Turkmenistan: 10 Border Crossings We Have Known
What is it about land borders that attracts hookers, drifters, the down-on-their-luck and crazy travelers like us? The margins, the frontier: the domain of moneychangers, deal-makers, “friendship” bridges, duty free shops — and occasionally, garden gnomes. Passing on foot from one country to the next, the feeling of adventure rises with a heightened sense of possibility, good and bad.
Waiting at the Peruvian Border
The Bolivian Salt Flats: Mother Nature’s Watercolor Playground
The Bolivian Salt Flats. If you haven’t already been to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, put it on your bucket list. Vast, stunning, barren, surreal — and a stark, beautiful reminder of how small we humans are, particularly in … Continue Reading
Fawlty Tours: 7 Games Tour Companies Play
We began this piece by writing a narrative tracing the hiccups in our Salkantay to Machu Picchu trek in Peru, but soon realized that our lessons learned go beyond Peru’s tourist-laden Inca corridor.
So what happened? Our guide got drunk two nights in a row, tried to pinch us for more money with unplanned and overpriced transport, didn’t buy our Machu Picchu tickets in advance, missed our meeting on the day of Machu Picchu by two hours, and mismanaged our return train and bus tickets to Cusco.
Not bad, eh?
Travel and Value: What Can You Buy For 66 US cents?
Value: a topic of great debate, perhaps nowhere more so than in the world of travel.
We've had friends rave about inns in Costa Rica that are a “great value” at $300 a night. At the same time, we've met travelers who do the “bad value” balk when accommodation anywhere runs more than $3.
Call one a spendthrift. Call the other cheap. Value is in the eye of the beholder.
Machu Picchu? Not Yet. A Slideshow of the Other Peru
As much as anyone else, we enjoy visiting world-famous tourist sites and embarking on adventure trips. Peru has been no exception. In fact, in just a few hours we depart for a five-day trek to the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu by way of a mountain pass at 4650 meters/15,500 feet.
But there’s almost always another side to the countries we visit. And sometimes we disappear into the hills for weeks to find it.
The Golden Plantain Awards: Central America’s Best and Worst
As we close out our reflections on Central America (don't worry, food comes next), we are reminded of the places and moments — the good, the bad, the idiosyncratic, the illustrative — from our zigzag chicken bus journey across Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Let's dig in.
Dating Advice from Galapagos Birds (or, When Charles Darwin Meets Cosmo)
I've been out of the dating game for exactly 12 years, so maybe I'm not the best person to write about how to snag a man. However, during our recent trip to the Galapagos Islands, I observed the behaviors of various birds and something struck me: their mating habits reminded me of those dating advice columns I used to read in Cosmo.
If memory serves, it's a cruel dating world out there. For those of you still in the game, take comfort that the animal kingdom knows no more forgiveness than our human one.
Were Charles Darwin to lead a voyage into the realm of dating advice, perhaps this is where he’d take us: