Island Vacation? No, not a golden beach on tropical shores: a vast, evaporated lake of salt sitting 11,995 feet high in the land-locked country of Bolivia. The 4,000 square mile Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flat) is roughly the size of Oregon’s entire Willamette Valley floor.
A visit to this natural phenomenon was part of our transportation scheme as we maneuvered overland through southern Bolivia and on into Chile. Continue Reading…
Hello, hello, friends! This is the beginning of a rapid-fire blog journey following our tire tracks south from La Paz, Bolivia by overnight bus to Uyuni and then onward via 4×4 through cemeteries, salt flats, volcanoes and lakes, through lands of geysers and hot springs and high elevation passes, and finally past the Chilean border and into the Atacama desert. Enjoy the ride!
He stopped the vehicle and welcomed us to the Cemetery of Trains. An auspicious beginning. Continue Reading…
During our Workaway in Bolivia, Ted and I paid a visiting to a fabulous local social services project in the neighboring town: The Valley of the Moon Children’s Centre.
“The Nursery” as Emma (our host and one of the incredibly humble founders of the project), fondly calls it, exceeded every single one of our expectations. We might have simply hoped to find a roof over the children’s heads, a snack on the table, and a bit of outside space in which to play…
What we found instead was a beautiful and fully modernized operation run not by external NGOs but by the community itself with outstanding management, terrific resources for parents, high quality care and teaching for the children, and exceptional integration of creative, holistic learning in the daily operations. Continue Reading…
Welcome to Sights from Our Adventures in the City, episode two. See Lima to catch up on episode one. It’s riveting entertainment, let me assure you.
This post’s title makes sense mostly in the non-sensical context of Kilban’s lines:
Piggly, wiggly, bird bath, pie
Cat hips, fish lips, poke you in the eye!
…
Aardvark, percolator, five-cent cigar
Rhinestones, soup bones, midgets in a jar…
Please, pull up a seat and follow along our wanderings in downtown La Paz, Bolivia…
Continue Reading…
La Paz, Bolivia is situated at 13,313 feet above sea level. In other words: 2.52 miles.
During our week-long Workaway stay in the region, Karen, our charming British flatmate, shed humorous insight into life at drastic heights above sea level, and the collective tally of random quirks grew as the days went by. What follows is our incredibly precise and highly scientific collection of odd happenings at lofty altitudes: Continue Reading…
Through connecting with a welcoming Workaway host family, we spent a little over a week living in Jupapina, Bolivia (about thirty minutes outside La Paz), earning room and board in exchange for flexing muscles of body and mind.
During our all-too-short time in Bolivia, we’ve been witness to unsettling destruction of natural resources: homes perched on unstable ground, bulldozers wreaking havoc on naturally stable terrain, and creation of geological chaos in the name of development.
What a treat to meet this inspiring family and engage in finding land management solutions.
Emma and Rolando with their charming kiddos: Bell and David…
Our hosts, Emma and Rolando, have dedicated their family and careers to bettering Bolivia. Emma relocated from England after spending time with international development agencies working in South America and Africa and is now involved in projects providing activities, meals, and education for children of working class parents unable to afford daycare and in community development projects benefitting indigenous people groups. Rolando ran against the political shoe-ins and won as an independent candidate for Mayor of nearby Mallasa, enacting many land preservation measures, developing public recreation lands, introducing art into public works projects, and advocating for the needs of the people, and later he was appointed and served as head of Social Services for all of La Paz.
Site: The Mendoza-Donlan Residence in Jupapina, Bolivia
The sky isn’t Photoshopped and the house really is that brilliant color. Light is amazing in Bolivia.
Emma and Rolando built their home four years ago in the beautiful Bolivian countryside, but their neighbors’ poor land management left them with an incredibly unstable property adjacent to their own. Their offer to purchase the land was accepted, and they’ve been working for the past few seasons to mitigate the damages and have plans to eventually develop the site as a tent and yurt campground serving La Paz.
As a landscape architect, I offered my skills to help with site master planning and Ted and I are both aided in filling holes, planting trees, cleaning out sand traps, and generally leaving the {future} campsite cleaner than we found it.
In one week’s time, we held client design meetings, worked out existing conditions and site analysis, spent time on concept and schematic designs, and reviewed design development options before committing to the final master plan. Continue Reading…
About half way through our stay in Bolivia, I took up the invitation to attend a Women Who W{h}ine get together in La Paz. Each month, marvelous ladies of the city (expats and locals working for NGOs, designers and artisans running their own businesses, World Bank employees, and tour company owners) bring a bottle of something delicious and spend an evening of drink and discussion in the company of other interesting minds.
In that spirit, here is our own whine and wine take on Bolivia:
WHINE: Border Crossings, Long-Haul Transportation, Stormwater Management, and Loopholes for Transgenic Crops
To make our exit from Peru, we bussed from Cusco to Puno (complete with overnight stay in sketch-city-hostel) and then followed the lake shore of Titicaca toward the border crossing with Bolivia. As Americans, we forked over $135 each in U.S. Dollars to satisfy the Bolivian government, and receive our entry visas. Continue Reading…
“Roberts had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. ‘I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts’ he said. ‘My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.’”
I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that my fascination with this crazy region at the ends of the earth began with a little line from the Princess Bride. Little did I know the first time I watched it (while home sick from summer camp), that all these years later, I’d be flying to the tip of South America to explore a place that’s captivated my imagination for so long.
Since we flew down to Punta Arenas on my birthday, Ted gave me the window seat (aww….), and I spent blissful hours watching the world of volcanoes, lakes, glaciers, and mountains pass beneath our wings. Take a peek, and enjoy the view!
Departing the hot desert of northern Chile…
Active Volcanoes
Beautiful islands on decent into Puerto Montt
Snow-capped Beauties
I have a thing for setting the scene with music. It’s a good soundtrack, I promise…
Enormous Glaciers!
The tip of the world, across the Straight of Magellan from Tierra del Fuego.
Yes, I’m officially geeking out. Best. Birthday. Ever.
Tomorrow, Ted and I leave bright and early to begin a five day, four night adventure on the “W” Track in Torres del Paine National Park. Gratefully, the area has re-opened to trekkers after the enormous forest fire that began on December 27th consumed more than 50,000 acres in the south and eastern portions of the park.
While we’re away from the computer this week, I’ll leave you with a few tidbits and pre-scheduled posts. Can’t wait to share the photos and stories that this coming week is bound to supply!
We arrived at Machu Picchu via Inca Trail, explored the ruins on foot, then returned for a second day to climb Huayna Picchu and examine the site from an alternate perspective. Like many humbling places on the planet, the entire setting cannot be justly captured on film or photo; the three dimensional relationships are too difficult to represent in 2D. After visiting the ancient site in person, I’m still truly in awe. The following are images and thoughts from day two…(and then I’ll get off my Machu Picchu kick, I promise!)
Yes, we watched documentaries, read books, flipped through photographers’ collections, and fantasized about wandering the ancient terraces in person, but nothing truly prepared us to see Machu Picchu in the flesh (or in the stone and land, as it were).
After trekking for days and viewing other once-alive-and-now-as-shadow shelters and outposts along the way, I wondered: What makes this ancient site beat with energy all these centuries later?
As a landscape architect, I am called to consider relationships between natural systems, material elements, and humans who dwell in artfully crafted spaces.
While the layout and planning and masonry walls and terraces are masterfully executed, the deeply responsive situation within the natural setting elevates the ruins from impressive to profound.
Imagine: without Huayna Picchu looming in the background, would the world so quickly recognize the iconic image of the ancient city?
It is not simply the marvel of the stones, it is the glorious context of the design that makes Machu Picchu shine. Continue Reading…
Do you know the secret of western Oregon’s beauty? The rain.
We natives either love to hate it or love to brag about our webbed feet, but more than that, we love to enjoy the sweeping vistas of indigenous green and the rainbow of ornamental plants that grow effortlessly up and down the Willamette Valley.
When Ted and I booked our Inca Trail journey for Peru’s rainy season, we were well-prepared with waterproof pants and jackets. What we weren’t prepared for was the surprise of beautiful wildlife growing lush along the trek. It makes perfect sense, though.
I only wish I’d had enough forethought to geek out and carry a field guide to Peruvian flora.
Instead, I captured photos of favorites for a future self-imposed research assignment.
This collection is dedicated to my design collaborator and fellow Oregonian, Gavin Younie of Outdoor Scenery Design. Enjoy the plants, my friend! I was thinking of you all the way…