Finding the “pura vida” in Costa Rica these days takes a little patience and some luck, but once found, well worth the wait.

By Maria Russo

As beads of sweat trickled across my forehead, I could not help but feel that I had made a mistake coming back to Manuel Antonio National Park. The humidity intensified as the afternoon sun shifted west — its rays prodding at my freshly burnt skin. I sat up slowly, trying to inhale the thick air as my lungs begged for some reprieve. The sea air permeated as waves pounded the shore then softly retreated out to sea. Cliffs hugged the base of the dense jungle forming a protective barrier against the waters of the Pacific — an intriguing seascape of water, earth, and sky.

My trip to Costa Rica had been mediocre at best. It was not that I was unappreciative of the rural beauty of the lush countryside, or the geometrically stunning patterns of the vivid rainforest flora — a wild, picturesque backdrop to the majestic, long stretches of beach beneath the awe-inspiring vistas of rock formations anchored in the vast ocean floor. It was that I had traveled to Manuel Antonio to experience intimate encounters with the park’s biodiversity, only to discover a multitude of guided tours flooded with sweaty tourists taking turns to squint through a telescope to view nothing more than a speck of an animal surreptitiously tucked within the arms of the canopy.

Longing to get away from the “theme park” feel that surrounded me from the onset of my arrival, I set out to find pura vida, a phrase meaning the “Pure Life” that Costa Ricans often use to express contentment or happiness when chatting with friends and family. Venturing the four-and-a-half miles north to Quepos, a small town known as the gateway to Manuel Antonio, I planned to meet Josue, a local Quepeño who offered to provide an inside glimpse of how tourism has shaped the lifestyle, culture, and economy of the area’s people. (more…)

Not for the weary traveler, the multi-day trek to Choquequirao tests even the most experienced hikers. But what about the result? How about unforgettable Inca ruins far from the crowds of tourists at that “other” site.

By Brendan van Son

The streets of the former Inca Capital, Cusco, Peru, are usually filled with tourists from around the world. They come in all forms, from backpackers, dressed in the South American backpacker’s uniform — flip-flops and Che Guevara beards — to the traditional tourist with their expensive cameras dangling from their necks and guidebook in hand. They are all looking to complete a pilgrimage to the Inca Mecca of Machu Picchu. However, when the Peruvian national government announced in February that Machu Picchu would be closed for several months, a good majority of visitors fled town, or canceled their trips all together.

It was then when the tourists were separated from the travelers. Tourists saw a missed opportunity, as the pictures they’d seen in magazines, and been so hoping to take with their own cameras, faded away. Travelers, on the other hand, saw an opening, a chance to experience something they, and most other people, otherwise would not have. As a local guide I spoke to put it, “there are hundreds of Machu Picchu’s located in the highlands of South America. It’s up to you to discover them.”

The “Inca Trail,” as advertised by the hoards of agencies promoting trekking to Machu Picchu, is, essentially, just a small section of a greater network of Inca Trails that web their way through the lushly covered mountains as far away as Colombia, and down to Northern Chile and Argentina. And Machu Picchu itself, although the crown jewel, is one of only hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ruins left behind by the Inca people. The trail to the site of Choquequirao is one of the less explored treks in Cusco’s Sacred Valley, and when the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was closed, many travelers took the opportunity to follow this trail less traveled. (more…)

A trek into the jungle in search of Colombia’s “Lost City.”

By Luke Armstrong

Our group grabs the packs from the top of the Jeep’s rusty roof before we set off for Ciudad Perdida, or Colombia’s Lost City. Our guide, Tunyi, decides to begin the six-day trek by telling us about eight tourists who were kidnapped on September 15^th, 2003, by the National Liberation Army (ELN) on the very trail we were hiking. “Three months they held them captive,” he tells us. “They were lucky to be released.” The three Australians in our group find this funny while the two boisterous Russians become quiet and pensive after I translate this bit of information for them. Perhaps Tunyi should have started by pointing out the names of some native fauna.

After the kidnapping incident, tourist treks to the city stopped until 2005. Though an air of danger still lurks on the forbidding trail, Colombia’s army now patrols the path, and according to our guide, the number of robberies have taken a dive. Within the first hour we pass a small group of soldiers wielding semi-automatic weapons. The Russians seem especially agitated by the troops, and they request in broken English that I ask our guide in Spanish their purpose.

We venture into Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountain range along narrow and seemingly impossible trails in saturated air. After a few hours we have crossed the same river a dozen times as it snakes along our difficult path. (more…)

Your guide to heading out of the city and exploring what lays beyond Buenos Aires.

By Katie Hammel

For the ambitious traveler, the best of Buenos Aires can be seen in a few days, and even those who want to take a more relaxed approach can get a good feel for life in the city in about a week. But chances are you shelled out a good amount of money for those tickets to Argentina, so taking a short trip is hard to justify. Luckily, there are plenty of other areas in Argentina worth visiting nearby. During a recent trip to Argentina, my husband and I decided to spend a few days in Mendoza, then take a couple of day trips to the Pampas and to Uruguay, all doable side trips beyond the border of Buenos Aires.

Mendoza

Two hours by plane from Buenos Aires, Mendoza City sits at the heart of Argentina’s wine country. The area’s high desert climate at the base of the Andes mountain range is responsible for the uniqueness of the wine produced here. The city itself is small enough to explore in an afternoon, so you can devote the rest of your time to wine tasting or taking advantage of the region’s outdoor activities. For our first day, we chose to concentrate on the wine.

We’d booked a room at a bed and breakfast in the center of town. The owner’s son, Javier, offered to arrange a day of wine tasting for us. Since planning tastings in Mendoza on your own can be a little daunting for newcomers — staff at many places don’t speak English and reservations are mandatory — we decided to take him up on the offer. (more…)

The easy part of about Playa Grande is falling for it immediately. The hard part? Getting there.

By Matt Stabile

I STUCK MY HEAD OUT THE OPEN DOOR OF THE BUS and looked down a steep cliff wall that descended into a wide bay. The public buses in Colombia are usually beat-up looking affairs, with rusty fenders, faded stripes painted across their bodies, and, as is customary across many parts of Latin America, manned by both a driver and an assistant who hangs bravely near the door and collects the fares as they are passed up to him after passengers get a chance to settle in.

This particular assistant didn’t seem fazed the slightest as he stood precariously near the open door, clinging to a bar above the windshield and staring lazily out the door of the bus, his foot hanging in the warm breeze, several hundred feet from the ground. We were crossing over the small row of hills that separate Santa Marta from Taganga, a sleepy fishing village on a bay that, incidentally, has become the region’s capital of scuba instruction. I was not heading there to take advantage of the diving but rather as a jumping-off point to head one beach further to Playa Grande, a secluded stretch of sand with an esteemed reputation for beauty. (more…)

Maybe secluded bays and pristine beaches aren’t the first things that pop into people’s head when they think of Colombia, but a trip to Colombia’s Caribbean coast reveals just that. And the best part? No tourists.

By Matt Stabile

AS I LOOKED OUT THE BUS WINDOW AND INTO THE NIGHT SKY, I could see flashes of lightning igniting the dark, colorless clouds lingering high above the Caribbean Sea, portensions of things to come. It was Friday night. Cumbia music was blasting from a radio hanging by a wire above the driver’s head. Behind me a teenage girl was meticulously applying makeup with the aid of a small compact mirror. Two seats in front of me, a group of young Colombian men were drinking from an open bottle and joking around with each other. I peeled my shirt away from my chest, damp from a combination of a slight drizzle and the tropical humidity that had blanketed my body the moment I stepped off the plane, and I couldn’t have been happier. I had traveled here to Colombia’s Caribbean coastline to visit its famously beautiful and remote beaches — beaches whose mythic-like images were planted enticingly in my mind by travelers during cold, rainy nights in Bogotá hostels and Medellín cafes; usually described in hushed tones, like the disclosure of the whereabouts of a lost city that few had seen.

It was only fitting that the rain began to fall the minute that I stepped off the plane. At first it was a light drizzle, but as the hours wore on, the rain progressed into what I would soon learn was an once-in-a-decade “weather phenomena” that, during the course of my stay along the coastline, would cause rivers to overflow, shantytowns to flood, city streets to become deluged and hidden beneath torrents of water flowing from the nearby mountains, and for me to seriously question what vendetta had I with the gods that was causing this storm to strike during the exact period of time that I was staying there.

The good thing about rain, particularly the kind that falls in the warm, humid months of November and December here, is that it’s still far better to be caught in than, say, a snowstorm in the icy, frigid streets back in New York where, had I been at that exact moment, I would certainly not be wandering around in a pair of swimming trunks and sandals, stopping into various shops, and lounging on the beach with a concoction of freshly squeezed coconut and orange juice served in a plastic mug shaped like a coconut shell.

“When do you think it ends?” I asked a bored barista the next morning, shortly after I had ordered my third straight cup of coffee. (more…)

A taste of true Brazilian culture is waiting for you just a short trip from Rio in Minas Gerais.

By Lindsey Witthaus

When most people picture Brazil they usually conjure up images of Rio de Janeiro and its many postcard-worthy locations such as Sugar Loaf Mountain and the famous Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. But let’s be honest, these sites are travel-bait, crawling with tourists all year round. In fact, whenever friends or family have visited me in Brazil, we almost always made the trip there. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with wanting to visit Rio — I was personally obsessed with the idea before my first trip to Brazil — however, why stop with Rio when there’s so much more to see just a short trip outside of the city?

When my two best friends came to visit me in Brazil last summer, I insisted we beat the Rio scene and take the short trip north into the state of Minas Gerais for an authentic glimpse of Brazil’s rural — or Caipira — culture. It was one of the best times of the year to go; during the months of June and July, all the little towns come alive for the annual celebrations, Festa Junina and Julinha. These parties are far from your average church function. Held in small communities or in the courtyard of Portuguese Colonial churches, these blowouts boast live music from bands playing well into the night. You can try an array of special drinks, including hot chocolate with cognac, or a favorite mixed drink consisting of tropical fruit blended with sweetened condensed milk and vodka or cachaça (sugar-cane alcohol). Tents are full of locals selling seasonal food such as roasted corn and the traditional canjiqua: a warm, sweet concoction, best described as a maize porridge. (more…)

Here’s the third and final video from my trip to Colombia: Cartagena.

Cartagena is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world and one of Colombia’s most popular cities to visit. In this video I wander the city’s picturesque “Old Town,” visit a museum dedicated to the city’s history of inquisition and torture, and explore the underground tunnels beneath the massive fort, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.

Here’s the second video from my trip to Colombia: Medellín. Next up is Cartagena and Colombia’s Caribbean Coast.

Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city, is a favorite amongst visitors to Colombia due to its amazing scenery, friendly people, and surprising number of sights to see throughout the city.

Here it is, my Bogotá video, the first of three videos I’m doing from my trip to Colombia. Next up is Medellin, then Cartagena and the Caribbean Coast.

Bogotá, Colombia’s bustling capital city, is one of the best places to explore Colombian culture for the very reason that the city is full of Colombians from all over the country. In this video I check out the view from the top of Cerro de Monserrate, see the sights around Plaza de Bolívar, and travel to the small town of Zipaquirá, where I head deep underground to visit the famous Salt Cathedral, a cathedral carved out in the middle of a mountain.

Though considered mild by most standards, the end of the winter in Buenos Aires is greeted with a jubilance that could only be seen in Argentina

By Madi Lang

Imagine a 50 year-old taxi driver in a beat-up but recently washed taxi. He’s pulled over to the side of the road and has nodded off under a dark, gray sky; a hallmark of a Buenos Aires winter. He has abandoned his thermos and mate; little green yerba leaves and lukewarm water have spilled onto the empty passengers seat. His body is bent over and his arms are folded to protect him from the freezing air. His head rests against the cold window where condensation accumulates as he breathes gently onto it. He only wakes up to cough, and then curses at the disturbance.

Suddenly, a ray of sunlight pierces through the window and the taxi driver bats open his tired eyes. Without a moment of hesitation, like a bear awakening from his hibernation, he squints, smiles and unfolds into a full-body stretch. He revs the engine, dusts off the dashboard, and begins the first day of the rest of his life with a renewed energy and a refined sense of hope.

This is how spring arrives in Buenos Aires. (more…)

A Canopy Adventure in Chile

By Valerie Martin

“I don’t want to do it!” Fara hissed.  The French tourist’s eyes widened with fear as we stood on a wooden platform, 1000 feet above sea level, on the western slope of the Osorno volcano.

Glacier-capped Osorno is often referred to as the Chilean Mount Fuji. It’s one of the most active volcanoes in the country, with 11 eruptions recorded since the 16th century.

As I peered down the endless steel cable that would send us flying through treetops and over deep canyons, I was suddenly afflicted by some first-timer doubts of my own. What if the pulley breaks? What if I get stuck on the line before reaching the next platform? What if I crash into the tree? What am I doing here?! (more…)

The Magellanic Islands Provide Some Of The World’s Most Amazing Sights – Getting There’s The Hard Part

By Madi Lang

Traveling to the Magellanic Islands is literally like traveling to the end of the world. Beginning from the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego and continuing to the east and the south, this area of the world offers up some of the most precious (and inaccessible) landscapes on the planet. Given the remoteness of the area, flights only go as far south to the city of Ushuaia (arguably the southernmost city in the world; Chile claims this title for the city of Puerto Williams which is technically further south, just arguably not a city). Thus, Ushuaia is a natural place to start a Southern Patagonian adventure.

When you fly in to Ushuaia keep your eyes peeled for the beautiful Martial Mountain Range (part of he Andes) before you descend through the billowing clouds that seem to always hang ominously over the city. I was surprised by the conflicting vistas I saw during my 15-minute taxi ride into town from the airport. The beautiful islands, mountains and waterways incongruously collide with a city that has been worn down by domestic immigration: only in the last 20 years has Ushuaia been a tourist hotspot and it is clear that the current inhabitants have done little to preserve the natural beauty of the land. Luckily, every inch of natural forest that is still intact is heavily protected and off limits to developers. Therefore, even though you’ll likely be sleeping within the city, it’s still easy to explore the incredible natural wonders that have escaped the footprint of man. (more…)