We were dressed in high-tech mourning clothes, attending a funeral for the landscape, all but a few square inches of our bodies covered in black rain-proof, wind-proof, sun-proof zippers and Velcro, laces and glasses. The acrid smell of disaster burned our nostrils, a reminder of the recent tragedy that swept its fiery way across Chilean Patagonia…
We’re sharing our Torres del Paine tales this coming week, but first, a flashback to set the stage: Continue Reading…
La Casa Escondida: “The Hidden House.” With less than one day to spend in Punta Arenas, Chile between arriving by plane and departing by bus, we put our trust in a quick bit of internet research, made a booking, and hoped for the best.
It’s a tall order to ask to visit a region and get a feel for the people, the food, the architecture, the industries, history, and unique beauty of the place in one week, let alone a twenty-four hour whirlwind visit. It’s a taller order still to ask for a meaningful birthday celebration in the midst of transportation flights, connections, and transfers.
What a gift when outlandish travel hopes and wishes come true!
Our stay at this charming guest house nestled in the woods between the airport and the city perfectly kicked off our eleven day adventure in Patagonia. Continue Reading…
Today, my thoughtful, easy going inspiration of a husband shares his write up of a recent interview with one of Bolivia’s finest leaders. Both men are humble and sincere, less the type to write for the world and more the type to be out living their convictions on local streets, day after day.
I’m grateful to share their story with you. -Bethany
A Man of the People: My Interview with Public Servant Rolando Mendoza
By Ted Rydmark
While in Bolivia, we spent a week on work-exchange with the Mendoza-Donlon Family.
Rolando Mendoza has extensive experience as a public servant. He is the former mayor of Mallasa (a suburb town of La Paz), the former Head of Social Services for the Municipality of La Paz (metro population 2.3 million), and is the current Person in Charge of Planning and Investment for the Ministry of Planning for the Bolivian Government.
When he was elected Mayor of Mallasa, he was the first non-party “man of the people” to serve in that office. His success as mayor resulted in his appointment a Head of Social Services for La Paz.
I took the opportunity sit down with Rolando and ask him about his experiences as a civic politician. Special thanks to Bethany for recording the conversation and to Rolando’s wife, Emma, for translating.
Ted: What was most challenging about working as head of Social Services in La Paz?
Rolando: It was most challenging to really know what was going on and to develop plans to transform the situation and make it better. Because we were working for the benefit of young people, children, and old people, I had this desperation to really make their lives better and make an impact – fast. I desired that my programs would become institutionalized and consolidated and would last over time.
Rolando’s position lasted four years, during which time he accomplished much. As the Head of Social Services for the Municipality of La Paz, Rolando’s responsibilities included five broad areas: Sports, Health (including infrastructure, equipment, and future planning), Education (including the planning and building of schools), Citizen Rights (equivalent to Civil Rights), and Citizen Security. During this time he was directly responsible for over 800 municipal staff. Continue Reading…
Welcome, friends, to our corner of the web! On this Leap Day, we’re hosting our second {digital} dinner party as a way to take a pause and enjoy an exchange with fellow travelers we’ve met through Twitter. For the backstory, see #RTWdinnerparty: Friends, foods, and table talk from travels around the world.
Pull a chair to the table and enjoy! When you’re done here, head on over progressive-dinner-style to our friends’ #RTWdinnerparty dishes and stories. Link roundup at the bottom of the post.
{Meet and Mingle} Bethany and Ted, here. Welcome to our dinner party. We’re just eight weeks into our journey around the globe; this hot on the heels (ha!) of eight years of dreams and schemes and plans.
As landscape architect and social worker, we’re taking time during travel to experience and share observations about the world through the lens of compassionate care for the planet and its people. At each destination, Ted puts new friends at ease, investing in conversations and teasing out details; Bethany heads up writing and photography to wrestle with tensions, catalog milestones, and share with readers an honest look at life across cultures.
Beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina is temporarily home base.
We arrived on Valentine’s Day, via a harrowing airplane ride from southern Patagonia (see Daily Travel Journal Day #41). We’ve paused for a bit and set up house in a cozy little apartment, complete with seafoam green glass shower tiles, cement kitchen countertops, and a solitary steak knife. (Details forthcoming on the cutlery.)
{Dinner Specialty} Summer Salads
We could <insert salad photo> right here and be through, but, well, you’ve seen Portlandia, right? It’s not all a joke. You’re going to hear the story of the food before it’s served. Continue Reading…
Our final morning on the long road south between Bolivia and Chile, we awoke at 4:30am to make the geysers by sunrise and Aguas Termales hot springs by breakfast. The kindness and tech-savvy of our driver, Edgar, allowed us to plug in iPods to the speaker system and create a crowd sourced soundtrack to our travels…
We alternated between The Avett Brothers, Mika, Josh Garrels and more as the sights melted into the rear view mirror, and we tried to forget the difficult night behind us. Continue Reading…
Sometimes, I don’t do my research.
I sign us up for random 4×4 tours through the middle of nowhere South America and, aside from the Salt Flats, haven’t the foggiest idea of what we’re about to see through the car window…
Sometimes, the surprise is worth the negligence.
Day two of our three-day-expedition meant little to me when I saw the route on the tiny 4×6 map we were given at the outset: tiny mountain symbols, a few “Lagunas,” dashed lines, and some lingering memories of beautiful flamingo snapshots from a fellow blogger.
Sometimes, as we travel, time is spent on today. The people, the places, the tasks at hand.
Sometimes, we trust that at a certain point, neglecting the planning and research means that tomorrow really will take care of itself.
How jaw-dropping to encounter plants and wildlife, mountain scenes and colored lakes, high country snow (the first snow of our Brazilian companions’ lives!), and approach each new bend in the road with wide eyed anticipation and wonder.
Sometimes, we have no idea what to expect. And that’s when travel comes alive.
Enjoy the peek at beautiful, wild, surprising altiplano of Southern Bolivia…
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…