Immersing yourself in nature without the sacrifice of comfort is exactly what you’ll get in a BubbleSky ‘tent’. The transparent dome, hidden within El Retiro, Antioquia, keeps a close eye on its carbon footprint with each room inflated by an air compressor using the same amount of energy as a 55 watt light bulb.
A comfortable semiorthopedic queen-size bed, private bathroom and hot Jacuzzi deck out the fittings trimmed with nature-inspired décor. Completely self-contained, guests will need to bring their own food, which can be cooked atop the gas grill and enjoyed on the deck, overlooking the surrounds. This is camping, without worrying about cheeky wildlife. Sleep under the stars without the bugs!
Hidden behind an unsuspecting façade in the heart of San Jose’s oldest historical district, Barrio Amon, this turn-of-the-century French Victorian mansion houses an affordable and stylish hotel. Cues to its coffee-plantation history are scattered throughout with dazzling handmade tile floors, high ceilings and Victorian-era furnishings.
Each morning you’ll enjoy your free freshly cooked breakfast in the restaurant, which overlooks the swimming pool and Jacuzzi, both connected via a slide, and the adjacent gym. The hotel also has a wellness centre, offering anti-ageing, dental, IV vitamin bar, osteopathy and massages.
Falling in love was the last thing I had expected to happen on an expedition to the remote parts of Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast. It’s the middle of my final night on Pacuare beach and darkness blankets the otherwise vibrant landscape I’ve come to know so well, interrupted only by the stars casting a fading spotlight over the waves violently crashing against the sandy shore. I’m out here wearing just Crocs and my underwear, thankful for the lack of light pollution in this remote haven.
The moon’s silver light outlines the curves of the body lying before me and I barely notice the bugs attacking my legs or the grains of sand flying through the air. Goosebumps creep across my skin as jolts of electric euphoria cause my mind to blank. It’s a moment so magical that despite my weary, sweaty body,
I almost hope it never ends.
When I arrived at Pacuare seven days ago, this was not the tale I thought I’d be weaving, but we have little say in the hand of fate.
I’m travelling with Biosphere Expeditions to a small beach-fronted research station in the province of Limon where I’ll be working with a team of scientists, research assistants and volunteers from conservation organisation, Latin American Sea Turtles (LAST).
A few hours drive from the country’s capital, San Jose, brings us to the canals of Tortuguero where we travel an hour by dinghy through the winding waterways. With every corner of the bend, the lush, green rainforest unfolds, and we play ‘I spy’ in the hope the tropical trees will uncover spider, howler and capuchin monkeys, geladas, caiman, green macaws, sloths and jaguars.
The engine of the boat hums to the chorus of cicadas and birds chime in for their solo, while white-faced geladas occasionally grunt their tenor parts like schoolboys whose parents have forced them onto the stage.
When we arrive at the station, we’re welcomed by the thunderous sound of the Caribbean Sea, and the delicate growl of Shakira, a deaf Rottweiler whose bark is as tough as her bite, but her nature as placid as a wise old owl.
“She is a guard dog,” our expedition leader Ida Vincent warns.
“She tends to go about her business, but we advise you avoid patting her because she does have a tendency to snap.” She points to Fabián Carrasco, LAST’s resident biologist, who reveals a nasty scar across his thumb and hand.
Teaming up with the volunteers from La Tortuga Feliz, a neighbouring program, we will walk a seven-kilometre stretch of beach each night in four-hour shifts between 7pm and 5am in search of leatherback, green and hawksbill turtles. We have one main goal – to find the turtles and collect the nests before poachers do.
Sea turtle eggs are hunted and sold on the black market, and for some species, like the green and hawksbill, they’re also traded for meat and shells. It’s long been a belief that the eggs are an aphrodisiac, which Fabián explains comes from an old sea tale.
“Fishermen were spending weeks or months out at sea. When sea turtles mate, they join tails and the male drops his sperm into the female. The process can take 30 to 40 minutes, but because the males want to stop others from mating with her, he hugs her for hours, or sometimes even days. The fishermen would see this and think they were mating the whole time.” I blush. The story is comical, but one that sadly results in a diminishing population, with almost all species appearing on the endangered list. Climate change, habitat damage, pollution, sand erosion, light pollution and fishing also play a part.
It takes us a while to adjust to our new surroundings. Our accommodation at the LAST station is rustic, dormitory-style bunk beds, some with a private bathroom, and others sharing the doorless washrooms, all fed by solar power. While the rest of our group search for phone service hotspots, I decide to make the most of this opportunity to completely detach from the outside world. It may be basic, but it doesn’t forgo comfort – there’s no need for hair dryers out here, and after a few hours in the sticky humidity, I welcome the pipe-style cold showers.
Our first day, like most days, is spent lounging in hammocks, attending lectures on sea turtles and getting to know our fellow volunteers. Sunlight hours are quiet and relaxing in preparation for our night shifts, but there’s still plenty to do and between chapters of books and dips in the sea, we help with beach clean ups, hatchery duty, fixing and cleaning equipment, and learning Spanish.
Fabián, a Mexican-born biologist who has worked with LAST for the past three years, runs the show and along with our leader, Ida, they make us feel welcomed and at home.
“In the beginning, I dreamed of working with big cats,” Fabián tells me, but an introduction to the world of turtles had him hooked. “It was something I wanted because I liked working on the beach, seeing the turtles and really enjoyed my time in the lab studying microbiology.
“Turtles are animals that cannot fend for themselves so when they come to the beach, they’re very vulnerable … They don’t do any damage when they come here, and we, humans, are their biggest predators.
I’m not here to be a hero, but I do want to protect them.”
Ida, who is also a marine biologist, agrees. “We could be really lucky on this trip,” she tells our group. “There’s a nest of turtles almost ready to hatch so we might get some babies.” Her smile and enthusiasm is infectious and despite our apprehension of what’s ahead of us on our walk tonight, we can’t help but embrace the energy.
After an early dinner of beans and vegetables (our meals are plant-based and organic, and alcohol is forbidden on the station) we are broken up into groups and head to bed to rest before our first shift.
My guide for the night is Hernan, a local who tells me he’s been looking for turtles for almost 10 years. Many of the guides are ex-poachers, now employed by LAST to lead teams during the season, which runs from May to November. For the most part of the four-hour walk, our group stays silent, chatting only between breathless puffs and during short breaks.
By the time we’re on our way back, my feet are covered in blisters, my body aches and I’m excreting so much sweat I can no longer tell if it’s been raining. A broken-English and broken-Spanish conversation with Hernan distracts me from the exhaustion, and while there are no turtles to be sighted tonight, it already starts to dawn on me that this trip is offering up more than just an opportunity to bond with my favourite oceanic reptiles. I was about to learn as much from the people as I was from the turtles.
Alongside the conservation work, LAST also invests in educating the locals, employs poachers and runs activities for the children who live nearby. “We want them to see us as a part of the community, rather than enemies,” Fabián explains as we scoff down our breakfast empanadas.
It’s only our second day here at the station, and our overnight introduction to saving the turtles is a reality check, but the hope of hatchlings keeps our spirits high.
The hatchery sits a few hundred metres away from the station and is a small, fenced-in section of sterilised beach that’s guarded 24/7 to protect the
re-nested eggs against predators – poachers, dogs, cats and crabs among them. Hatchery duty falls under our job description on this trip, but first, we need to learn how to recreate a nest.
Turtle nests, we learn, are circular holes with a lip pocket for air. As I dig my arms deep into the sand, my inner school student is desperate for praise. It turns out digging a near-perfect circle is harder than expected and with each “it’s too wide”, “it’s not straight enough” and “dig a little deeper” my overachiever persona is kicked to the curb.
I spend the afternoon soaking my feet in a makeshift saltwater footbath until the sun starts to lower its position in the sky. “It’s babies time,” Ida says, as we all walk over to the hidden nest Fabián buried earlier in the season.
The path there is as fascinating as the exhumation we’re about to witness. Geladas make frightening grunting noises from their thrones high in the trees, while leafcutter ants carry small squares of green on their back in a hi-ho fashion. Toucans squawk, desperate to steal the spotlight with their kaleidoscope beaks, and dogs follow us, baffled that on this rare occasion, no one is interested in playing.
A few kilometres up the beach, in an area covered in vines and overgrowth, we gather around Fabián who lies belly down. We’re given instructions for the hatchling release – never walk in front of a turtle, don’t interfere with their path to the sea, and above all else, watch where you step. As he scoops sand out of the nest by the handful, the occasional wriggling flipper is caught and gently placed in a polystyrene foam box to protect it from the sun. It’s important the hatchlings are released in the shade to avoid the hot sand frying their delicate bodies.
A leatherback nest houses an average of 80 eggs, and the exhumation takes a little over an hour, revealing a number of unsuccessful ones plagued by fungus, bacteria, or foetuses that died before hatching. As if the 1 in 1000 survival odds for hatchlings to reach sexual maturity isn’t enough, only seven are released from this single nest. Before Biosphere Expeditions and LAST arrived in Pacuare, poaching at this site was nearly 100 per cent, and has since been halved. I take comfort knowing that despite the small number, our release saved these hatchlings from a sure sale on the black market.
I stand in awe as they drag their tiny bodies across the sand toward the sea. One little guy lags in the back, trying to figure out whether he should follow his siblings to be engulfed in the ocean’s waves, or whether he’d much prefer to stay in the comfort of the box he’d just been released from, awoken from a tranced state. He’s my favourite, I decide, and with each simultaneous push of the flippers, it’s hard not to be moved by his conviction. Human footprints build mountainous obstacles, and while the lagging hatchling is not quick, nor graceful, his determination is unwavering. As a group of 20-odd humans standby rooting him on, my love affair with these chelonians strengthens.
Witnessing this has turned hatchery duty into a coveted role – everyone wants a break from the night walks and to be the first to see the near-ready nest in the hatchery emerge. I draw the lucky straw, along with my roommates, Scarlett and Talar, and sit on the 3am to 6am guard shift.
In 15-minute intervals, we inspect each nest, which are protected from predators by some netting, hoping to witness some bubbling sand indicating the exciting arrivals. The sun puts on a spectacular show, and a new day is dawning, but still no turtles.
It takes two more nights of braving the humid, rainy conditions before I come face-to-tail with an adult leatherback. It’s around 9pm and I’m getting some sleep when Ida comes knocking on our dorm’s door. “Ladies, come quick! There’s a turtle right out front!”
we hear her say in a tone somewhere between a shout and a whisper as to not wake the nearby sleepers.
Suddenly, body aches and wounded feet dissipate and I sprint to the station’s gate and out to the beach. This is the moment where exhaustion, relief and emotion collide and as I stand in the moonlight in my underwear, I feel my eyes well up with tears.
The mamma leatherback gracefully goes about her duty, sprinkling sand with a delicacy and calculation I’d been unable to match when digging days earlier. This is the only opportunity she’ll get to protect her babies, and once she’s satisfied with her masterpiece, she heavily turns her body back toward the sea. Her presence on land is far more laborious than her ability to glide through water, and just before she hits the wet sand, she takes a moment to rest and then, with a few more heaves of her flippers, she disappears, unknowingly leaving her babies in the safe hands of Carlos, an ex-poacher turned guide.
In that moment, my skin crawling with fervour, every step of the week becomes entirely worth it.
As I sit in the kitchen on my final day listening to paradise’s soundtrack, Fabián lies in the hammock somewhere between sueños (dreaming) and consciousness, and Shakira sits calmly by his feet. I stare out into the canal where Carlita, our cook, rests at the end of the dock, and I movie-roll my way through the last week. I’ve run out of clean clothes and my body is desperate for a hot bath, and yet, right here in this special part of Costa Rica, I feel totally and utterly at home. My heart is full.
The red light of sunset hangs in the mist churning out of the thundering rapids. Two tribesmen, the best river runners in their village, steady their motor-dugout for a run upstream into the fury of the monstrous waves. Beyond lies the mystery of the vast, jaguar-haunted Guiana Highlands, but the only way in is on the Kabalebo River, which sits just past these rapids. The Amerindians pick a line and the old outboard screams as the boat shoots into the heart of the rapids. If the canoe happens to turn broadside to the fury of the river, it will be broken up and lost, and we will be left stranded in the Amazon jungle.
Upon my arrival to the capital, Paramaribo, the Minister of Tourism told me “Suriname is very wealthy.” We meet in the shadow of an old Dutch castle with rusting cannons still trained on the Caribbean. Suriname is emerging from a dark era of dictatorship and atrocities, so common in post-colonial nations, but I’ve come here to explore its dramatic potential for adventure. His Excellency, dressed more like a Somali pirate than a diplomat, offers me a glass of rum and smiles, reaffirming that this is an extraordinary country. “In the jungle there is gold and bauxite; many minerals, many opportunities for mining.” The crux of what he is saying is this: Suriname must make its way in the world, either by extraction or appreciation of its only asset, the Amazon jungle.
Old town Paramaribo looks like a film set, and as I walk a dirt road lined with soaring Amazon hardwoods and colonial mansions, I consider my plan. The Minister of Tourism agrees to loan me a Cessna aircraft to explore the country, wanting to prove to the world that Suriname, both a Caribbean and South American nation, is at peace and has much to offer. My journey is taking me deep into the Northern Amazon to stand upon the banks of the storied river, Kabalebo.
“Ready to fly?” my pilot asks early the next morning as I board a small single-prop bush plane. Before I have time to answer, he quickly gets the shuddering craft airborne, and we’re tracing the Caribbean coast toward the mouth of the Kabalebo River, where we will land and refuel. From the air I can see silt dark water lapping at dense mangrove forests, a visual indication why Suriname has never caught on as a beach destination, despite a long Caribbean coastline. I was encouraged though; I wanted jungle adventure, not white sand.
Stepping out of the plane at a riverside airstrip, I’m greeted by Evan, the last Peace Corps volunteer working with the Maroon people.
“They were slaves, and when they escaped, they went into total isolation out in the jungle,” he explains as we step into his little wooden pirogue, a narrow canoe made from the trunk of a tree. Following the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, Dutch colonials brought cheap labourers from Indonesia, India and China. Meanwhile, former African slaves formed what amounted to a nation within a nation. Living in the jungle, they were cut off from the changing language and customs of their homelands. “Their culture is like a time capsule, it hasn’t changed for 200 years,” Evan says.
The people we meet in the village are quiet and show no signs of curiosity as to who we are. “The escaped-slave mentality is still strong,” Evan explains as we walk through the village. Shrines to Obeah sit at corners of dirt lanes and A-frame huts are decorated in a style that Evan says was commonplace in West Africa long ago. “Everything is about survival for them,” he adds. Their garden locations are secret and they keep caches of supplies hidden in the jungle, including machetes, cooking pots and pickaxes. “These are their wealth, their bling-bling.”
I check into a riverside lodge nearby called Pikenslaay, where I fall asleep to the calming and mysterious sounds of the jungle, and awaken to the golden sunrise reflecting on the Kabalebo. The view before me is an almost clichéd picture of a jungle river; a dense canopy hangs over dark, slowly roiling water.
Our next destination is a 300-kilometre plane ride away. My pilot is navigating by map and compass as we trace the looping course of the Kabalebo, sometimes crossing the broad stretches of unbroken jungle. From the aerial view, the jungle looks vast with no sign of humans, yet across the border in Brazil, the very same jungle is quickly disappearing. Technically known as the Guianan Moist Forests, the terrain we are venturing into is known as one of the largest intact tropical rainforests in the world, stretching from Venezuela in the west to the Atlantic coast in French Guiana. My thoughts drift back to the tourism official I’d met in Paramaribo and his unconcealed pro-industry attitude. If Suriname is to save its wild places, it will have to be done with tourist dollars.
Suddenly, the pilot pulls back the controls, jams the throttle and the plane shudders as it angles away from the grassy airstrip below, and narrowly clears the jungle canopy. It banks steeply, and as he wipes his forehead and pulls off his radio headset, the pilot says “On the runway… big anaconda.” Our welcoming party to Nature Resort Kabalebo, a rough collection of buildings and grass huts set on a short runway cut out of the jungle. This is the most remote settlement in Suriname.
“Welcome to the jungle!” a bare-chested, barefooted man shouts, happily swinging a machete as he walks towards the plane. “I’m Jerry, your guide,” he says in a strong Dutch accent. He explains that come afternoon, we will be travelling upriver in a boat, into a part of the Amazon that is untouched by man. “No place you can go is more wild.”
Jerry, a zealous fisherman, suggests a walk to the river to cool off. As I glide through the water, he pulls a big silver fish from it. I ask what type of fish he’s catching, to which he emphatically replies, “Piranha.”
“How dangerous are piranhas?” I ask, quickly kicking toward the shore. He takes a moment to think before he responds; “This time of year, if you aren’t already bleeding, they shouldn’t attack you.
“If you go in any of these villages, you’ll find people missing toes or fingers. Just don’t go swimming naked and you’ll be fine.”
On the walk to the resort’s nearby village, I learn that we will be travelling upriver in a motorised dugout with two of Jerry’s best boatmen. We are entering wild territory here with just the slight possibility of running into some small nomadic Indian groups, although unlikely given the remoteness of the area. It seems Jerry is more concerned about the illegal gold miners who have begun to rush in from Brazil and wreak havoc on the environment.
The village of thatch-roofed huts is small and smoky. Amazonian natives lounge around in loincloths and donated clothing, drinking warm cassava beer brewed in clay pots. “The women chew the cassava,” Jerry says, handing me a bowl of beer made from the fermented remains. I try not to think about the information he has just passed on to me as I take a sip.
Once a year, the village men make the trek to the coast to sell cotton, which is their only cash crop. The rest of the year, the village lives on starchy cassava, fish from the river and animals hunted in the forest. Despite understanding the modern world, and valuing manufactured items, they don’t like the city and distrust people from it, and even those who move to the city eventually come back to the village, Jerry explains.
As our vessel’s engine starts and we begin speeding up the river, Jerry yells over the drone of the outboard, “These guys know every rock and every fallen tree under the water.” The settlement is barely out of sight when I see my first caiman, a small alligator half-submerged and poised on a rock. A short ride upriver, we surprise a group of capybara, large rodents which can dive underwater for several minutes. One has long, slashing wounds running down its back. “Jaguar,” Jerry confirms. “There are many animals here because there are no people.”
Our aim is to travel as far into the Amazon as possible, but for tonight we’re staying at Uncle Piet’s Lodge. Our dugout glides onto a sandbar just as the sun is setting, casting its shadow over the raw wooden stilt house on the riverbank. “Welcome to Uncle Piet’s Lodge,” Jerry smiles. “The most peaceful place in the world.”
It takes no time for Jerry to bait his hook with some of the piranha he caught earlier and he begins fishing in the growing darkness. Behind us, a small generator kicks on and the house lights up. Over a fire, cassava bread is warmed and a bottle of rum is passed around as we sit with the locals. It’s the first time I’ve heard them speak and within minutes, Jerry walks out of the gloom with a monstrous fish.
I roll out of my hammock in the darkness. Scarlet macaws are screeching raucously nearby and monkeys forage in the treetops on the far bank. Jerry is already awake and brewing coffee over a small fire. We are leaving early to reach our campsite, water levels permitting.
Our hopes are high and we spend the day poking our canoe into tributary streams, swimming and fishing. Following a set of jaguar tracks from the riverbank into the jungle, I realise why early European explorers lamented the density of the “Green Hell” where a day’s travel is often limited to a single kilometre.
Sharp, spined hanging vines tear at my clothes as thick undergrowth and sucking mud entangle my feet. Cicadas call out as loud as fire alarms and every surface is covered in insects, but it’s Jerry’s snake warning I’m most worried about. He tells me there are species in the jungle with a bite that will kill me.
Despite this fear dwelling inside me, it’s hard not to marvel at the spirit of the Amazon. It’s full of life; monkeys make treetops their endless playground, capybara play their roles as the socialites of the jungle and jaguars stealthily crawl through the thick vegetation, each animal gliding through this hot gloom with a grace and ease I can’t imitate. This corner of the Amazon seems like one of the most deadly places on the planet, and yet, the natives consider this very same jungle home and thrive in its chaos.
I wonder to myself if it’s merely a change in perspective which will allow me to experience the jungle more as a friend than an adversary.
It takes us most of the day to reach the boat-destroying rapids, and after each attempt to make it through, we find ourselves courting disaster. I make my way upstream through the dense jungle to get a better look and realise the water is too low to make it over the rocks and the dugout is too heavy to portage around them. Jerry finally shakes his head and calls the attempt off. “It’s too dangerous, you don’t want to spend the night out here,” he said. He was right, I didn’t.
This is as far upriver as we can go. I am content with what I’ve seen. I take a moment to savour my last moments in the wildest place I have ever visited, and despite the urge to continue deeper into the jungle’s depths, I still have a couple of days to spend at the lodge. I sneak up on hiding caimans, fish for monsters of the river depths, search for glimpses of giant anacondas and jaguars tracks lacing the riverbanks.
As we silently drift back toward the airstrip, watching scarlet macaws browse the canopy, I wonder if more people were to come and experience this untouched aspect of the Amazon, would there be more incentive to preserve it? But for a country still recovering from a troubled past, is the wild expanse of rainforest worth more in tourist dollars than the gold which may lie beneath it? I certainly think so.
While Colombia offers up a certain unsavoury stereotype as a destination famous for Pablo Escobar and drug cartels, the reality is that this South American nation has plenty of sights, delights, activities, museums and incredible biodiversity that warrant greater investigation and positive recognition.
This 13-day adventure aims to break down those stereotypes and take you inside the country’s heart through its historic cities, people, culture, museums, national parks and beaches.
The journey starts in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s birthplace Bogota, with a walking tour and introduction to the history and intricacies of current Colombian culture. You’ll visit the Botero Museum, the Casa de la Moneda, where you’ll learn the history of Bogota through the currency, and the Gold Museum, which houses one of the finest collections of pre-Hispanic gold in the world.
A full day’s trekking in Chicaque National Park among oak forests and waterfalls should get the heart rate pumping and the senses activated as you play spot the spectacled bear, deer, tapir, puma, Andean condor, jaguar, woolly monkey, ocelot and toucan.
En route to Villa de Leyva, one of the few towns in Colombia to have preserved much of its original colonial architecture, a pit stop will be made at Zipaquirá, famous for its Salt Cathedral carved underground in a functioning salt mine.
During a full-day tour of Iguaque National Park you’ll see its eight lakes and numerous plants and animals – watch out for the famous frailejon, a high-altitude succulent that’s endemic to the Andean region.
The following days are spent leisurely exploring Medellín and the once troubled Santa Marta, Colombia’s first Spanish settlement. Once known as a hide-out for insurgents, Santa Marta is the gateway to the Tayrona National Natural Park and Colombia’s premier beach destination. The region was once home to the ancient Tairona culture, whose traditions still exist today among the highland indigenous peoples, including the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo tribal groupings.
The remaining three days are spent in Cartagena, where you’ll be welcomed into the fold by locals at La Boquilla fishing village. You’ll explore the mangroves by canoe, learning about life on the water and identifying the wealth of flora and fauna that inhabits this rich ecosystem.
Later a visit to the Colombia National Aviary, which features 2000 birds representing 140 species, should keep the budding ornithologists happy as they spot toucans, herons, harpy eagles, flamingos and Colombia’s national bird, the Andean condor.
The final day before the flight back to Bogota is a free day, but spending time soaking up the sun at Gente de Ma, a resort in the Rosario Islands and one of the most beautiful archipelagos in the Caribbean, is highly recommended. This group of 27 islands is surrounded by coral reefs, and is one of the 46 Natural National Parks of Colombia. Soak it up.
Before heading to Argentina, I had heard all about the sensuality of tango: the beautiful women, the revealing dresses, the sultry looks and the sexy music. But now, as a hot-blooded heterosexual in the midst of my first Buenos Aires tango experience, I’m slightly disconcerted to find I can’t keep my eyes off a dancer named Carlos.
He’s tall and dark with the Italian features of many of his compatriots, and has deep black eyes like the subject of a European master – the kind that seem to follow you around the room. And, although he’s stuck to the side of a stunning brunette almost bursting from her red dress, those big black eyes have me in a trance.
When I arrived in the boulevard-lined South American capital yesterday, my head was full of a very different idea of Latino machismo – one based on the gauchos of Bruce Chatwin’s classic, In Patagonia. Ever since reading it as a teenager, these South America hombres have remained in my imagination, where freedom and adventure sit side-by-side. Tough men on piebald ponies drinking mate, swathed in ponchos, with long-bladed knives jutting from the folds of their waistbands.
It all started well. Our taxi driver from the airport, Martin, introduced himself with a humble reference to the great South American liberator General San Martin and listed his three greatest loves: “I like football very much,” he said, declaring loyalty to the famous Boca Juniors. “And tango is my passion,” he added, moving his shoulders in a dance. “But women,” he continued, locking eyes with me in an intense stare: “Women I love!”
Twenty-four hours later, bathed in the soft red light of the Rojo Tango show, a five-piece band filling the room with songs of lost love, there are no ponchos and not a long-blade in sight, but it would be a brave gaucho to doubt Carlos’s machismo. The women in the room swoon with his rhythm. When the show ends, white light dissipates the fog of desire and I stumble from the tango restaurant and into a bar next door, my companions teasing me about my first, albeit short-lived, Latino man-crush.
The next day, wandering the gritty, pastel-coloured streets of La Boca, I’m told tango originated as a dance among men in the late 1800s. With thousands of male immigrants pouring into the capital, the city’s bordellos were busy places, where brawls were common. Out of the fights and pent up anger, tango was born, with men dancing together while they waited their turn. The bordello staff joined them and tango evolved into what it is today.
Three days later, despite a night at an estancia in the wild northeast region of Esteros del Ibera, and a brush with a khaki-clad safari ranger who looked like a young Harrison Ford in the jungles around Iguazu Falls, I’m yet to experience the Argentinean machismo I’d expected. But although I only have a few days left in the country, and Patagonia is 2,000 kilometres to the south, there is still hope. Sitting on a plane circling the north-west colonial city of Salta, I notice a map on which the silhouette of a horse-mounted gaucho trots across the Salta and Tucumán plains. Although the region is now famous for its wines, this is also cowboy country.
Nestled hard up against the Andean foothills, Salta has the appearance of a quaint European provincial capital, despite its population of just half-a-million. From the plane window, the landscape is a patchwork of orange-leafed vineyards. To the northwest, one of the world’s highest railways – Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds) – climbs 4,220 metres into the grey mountains.
At 1,200 metres above sea level, Salta and the surrounding region is home to some of the highest vineyards on the globe, famous for producing the dry white wine torrontes that we’re chasing on a three-day trip that will take us south from Salta to Tucumán, the home of Argentinean independence.
On the way into town, our guide Noah tells us that Salteños love wine, music and a good time. “The secret is not to get the guitar player drunk or else the music is over very early,” Noah declares with a burst of laughter, as we pass llamas grazing in green paddocks and roadside empanada stalls.
Salta is famous for its empanadas, which Noah assures us are the best in the country. Nearing our hotel, he offers one last note on local culture: “If the waiter takes his time to take your order, it takes even longer for your order to arrive, and even longer to get the bill, then you know you’re in Salta.”
It’s Sunday and the sidewalks are almost empty as I stroll along narrow streets lined with terraced colonial buildings. Old men gather on street corners talking in soft Spanish. In a dusty park, hawkers cluster below tall palm trees and pigeon-soiled statues, flogging the red-and-white tops of the River Plate football team, which is in town for the weekend.
I make my way along a side street and stumble onto Plaza 9 de Julio, the city’s colonial heart. Classical French and Italian architecture lines the square. Passing the pink basilica I cross the sunny plaza to a cafe. Chairs and tables are laid out on the wide footpath, where I order a coffee and sit back to take in the afternoon. A busker plays a violin, teenagers stroll arm in arm and children slurp ice creams under mandarin trees laden with ripe fruit. My coffee never arrives. I mention it to the waiter as I leave. He shrugs as if to say: “What did you expect? You’re in Salta now gringo.”
Having experienced Salta time, I’m keen to taste the Salteños’s other great passions: music and wine. But first we decide to take in some of the town’s bricks-and-mortar attractions. Founded in 1582, the city is known colloquially as ‘Salta La Linda’ – Salta the Beautiful – and is home to some of the country’s finest colonial architecture, which hints at the former wealth of the regional capital.
Next door, the Museum of High Altitude Archeology houses three child mummies, found in 1999 on the cold slopes of a 6,700 metre volcano. It’s believed the mummies were child sacrifices made to Incan gods.
A couple of doors down is a small bakery, shelves glistening with Salteño treats: melon marmalade wrapped in dry pastry and sprinkled with icing sugar, fig paste wrapped in pastry with sliced walnuts and dulce de leche – caramelised sweetened milk, incased in a hard icing sugar shell.
Already light-headed from our sugar hit, we hit a peña. Local bars where Salteños gather to drink, eat and sing, peñas are the best place to get a real taste of the region’s culture. Noah has assured us this peña, La Casona del Molino, is as local as they come.
It’s 9pm when we arrive and the place is deserted – Salteños are famous for the late hours they keep – so we order wine and empanadas, and wait. A former mansion, La Casona is a jumble of high-ceilinged rooms cluttered with wooden tables. By the time the first musicians shuffle into the place, three empty bottles of Malbec clutter our table. By 11pm the place is full, each room with its own musicians and audience, all drinking, eating and dancing to the acoustic folkloric sounds. It’s 4am when we spill like guitar music onto the street.
The next morning the temperature has dropped and the sky is pewter. I emerge from the hotel wearing a coat and nursing a robust hangover. We’re about to drive through the heart of Argentina’s north-west wine region and the thought of another glass of the stuff gives me shivers. But, with a little machismo of my own, I decide the best defense is to tackle the dilemma head on.
We take the Route 68 south from Salta toward Valles Calchaqui and the northwest wine growing capital of Cafayate. The landscape is a windswept canvas of rugged ochre-coloured mountains and wide flats of low scrub, towering cacti and dry, rockstrewn riverbeds. We taste ruby red Malbec and delightfully dry torrontes wines before visiting the Devil’s Throat, a cylindrical incision in the red valley walls where a pan piper fills the air with haunting notes that seem to hover inside the rock formation. But still, despite the Wild West landscape, there’s not a gaucho in sight.
The following day we continue south toward the town of Tafi del Valle in Tucumán Province. Our new guide, Hugo, assures me this is real gaucho country and that our destination, the 230-year-old Estancia Las Carreras, is a working ranch and brimming with cowboys.
We leave Cafayate and traverse the traditional lands of the indigenous Diaguita people. It’s a harsh country of barren rolling hills. At the pre-Columbian Ruinas de Quilmes we explore the remains of what was once a town of 5,000. Our indigenous guide, Nicolas, explains how the people fought the Spanish with bows and arrows and slingshots, the women fighting beside their men, resisting colonisation for 130 years. When the conquistadors finally won, many Quilmes people killed themselves rather than surrender.
Route 307 takes us out of Valles Calchaqui to the 3,000 metre pass, El Infiernillo. The air is crisp and a flock of llama blocks the road as we crest the pass, a shepherd slowly walking behind. I step from the car to take a photograph. As the shutter clicks, a mob of horses thunders over a nearby ridge, in pursuit are two gauchos riding high and proud in their saddles. I stand and stare. One of the gauchos waves. I nod. Then they’re gone.
That night, huddled around an open fire sipping Malbec, our hosts at Las Carreras inform us they have something special planned: a night ride through the valley with one of their cowboys. An hour later, swathed in a red poncho, I’m riding beside Moreno listening to tales of a life spent in the saddle. We climb to the top of a ridge overlooking the estancia. The homestead lights of Las Carreras twinkle below and I ask Moreno if he knows any gaucho songs.
Moreno leans back in his saddle and begins to sing. It’s a soft, heart-broken ballad of freedom and loss, passed on by his grandfather years ago riding these same hills in search of scattered cattle. The melody rises from Moreno’s throat in puffs of fog, floating on the frigid night air. The horses’ hooves strike a beat on the rocky trail and the ballad echoes across the valley. A full moon throws our shadows forward; two gauchos riding side by side.
It’s taken a week to shake my Carlos man-crush, but finally I’ve found my macho gaucho. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s singing.
It is said there are three simple steps to happiness: find something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. I might add to this list, find yourself a bike. One day, on my way to the office, an unlicensed driver ignored a stop sign, drove through an intersection and crashed into me and my bicycle. I hobbled away with a broken kneecap, a $20,000 insurance settlement and the powerful reminder that life is precious, time is limited and I’ll really miss my knees when they’re gone. I quit my job and went travelling around the world on a quixotic quest to tick off the items on my bucket list.
All of which brings me to the dusty Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama. For an outpost on the edge of the world’s driest non-polar desert, the town offers fine hotels, gourmet restaurants and excursions into a truly remarkable slice of South America. One such activity is to rent a bike and pedal 13 kilometres west into the Valley of the Moon, a protected nature sanctuary famous for its stark lunar landscape. I arrive at the park gates with my front tyre wobbling with all the stability of a Central African government. Parched for oil, my chain clatters in desperation. I make a note that from now on I will check the condition of any bike before I rent it. Sound advice, and I could have used some more. For example: under no circumstances should you leave your bike on the side of the road to hike around looking for better views of volcanoes. Soon enough, I am lost in the desert with no form of communication, directions, food or warmth. It is late afternoon in March, and the baking day will soon transform into a chilly night. My last update to my family was the previous week when I was in Bolivia. Not a single person on the planet knows where I am.
Before I set out on my journey, a friend asked what I hoped to achieve. My mates were settling down, building careers and starting families, so why would I choose to be that one older guy you typically meet in backpacker hostels? You know, the one who looks a little out of joint, has great stories, and often smells like Marmite. My reply? At some point during my adventure I will stumble into a transcendent moment of pure isolation, a challenge that can only be surmounted with deep soul-searching and personal inner strength. My friend looked at me askew, so I also explained there would be copious amounts of beer and beautiful women.
Just a few months after that conversation, there is neither beer nor babe for miles as I desperately scan the sprawling Atacama Desert for my rickety rentabike. Panic begins to tickle my throat. It appears my Moment of Zen has arrived. I sit down on a slab of rock, and breathe in. The dusky sun casts a pink glow over perfect pyramid-shaped volcanoes. Early evening stars begin to glitter. A cool breeze rouses goosebumps on the back of my neck, along with my long-awaited epiphany. I am here for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. The bike accident, the decision to travel, the dodgy rental bike, the walk into the desert…wherever I am is where I am supposed to be. Slowly, I relax into the fear and excitement, slipping into the moment the way one cautiously eases into a too-hot bubble bath. Then I hear a voice. A Japanese backpacker had seen my bike on the side of the road and figured there must be something to see. Soon enough, he got lost too, but somehow he found me just as I was busy finding myself.
As the night sky vanquished the peach-fuzz sunset, we see headlights in the distance. Relieved, we find our way to the road, recover our bikes, and pedal in darkness back to San Pedro. That night we get blindingly drunk to celebrate our good fortune, and I have my second epiphany: it is the people we meet who create the paradise we find.
Ten years and a hundred countries later, there have been several other moments of life-affirming clarity. As for those three simple steps, they sorted themselves out beyond my wildest dreams. Whenever I find myself lost, at home or on the road, I simply remind myself: wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be.
With granite spires and glaciated mountain ranges that sprawl across Argentina and Chile, Patagonia is one of the most diverse and visually spectacular locations in the world.
Wild and isolated, Patagonia is South America’s playground for intrepid adventurers – its wind-swept plains, temperate rainforests and turquoise lakes stretch for thousands of miles, and despite its desolation, it holds a wealth of unique flora and fauna.
Exploring this amazing landscape by sea with Aurora Expeditions is a bucket list trip. On their Patagonia and Chilean Fjords Expeditions you can kayak through ice calvings, waterways and glistening fjords teeming with wildlife, and drift through some of the most secluded areas of Torres del Paine National Park.
Once you reach your destination, you’ll have the chance to kayak at least once a day and anywhere between 5 to 15 kilometres (2 to 4 hours) per outing, sometimes taking a snack and a flask of hot chocolate to enjoy on the excursion. The Aurora guides have years of kayaking experience and will lead the group on each excursion, explaining facts about the wildlife and landscape as they pass by.
Highlights include seeing flamingos, ibis and swans on the shores of Lake Argentino, or befriending a charismatic guanaco as you cross the Patagonian steppes.
Who would have thought a marine safari could be so exciting? I’m on a boat swaying by a rocky platform where male sea lions are guarding their harems with strangled croaks. The persistent Patagonian wind ruffles their manes – surprisingly dry, for the males dare not dive into the sea.
If they did, competitors would steal their females in a flash. The harems are delineated with virtual walls – should any other male step beyond an imaginary partition, a fight ensues. But not for long. Every macho on the platform is worried about the teenagers swimming in the sea below. Not as well built but horny and tenacious, they wait for an opportunity to pounce when a herder isn’t looking. Suddenly all hell breaks loose. One harem disappears under the manic flapping of a million seagull wings. A male chases them off only to be attacked by a flock of South American terns. Other males scoot away awkwardly on their flippers. Their females follow them with the pups flapping clumsily behind. The teenagers swimming under the rock ledge prick up their ears. A giant petrel dives imperiously, disperses the terns with authority and picks up something bloody with its beak.
It’s a sea lion placenta, and I’ve just witnessed a birth; Patagonia certainly humbles you in more ways than one.
It’s difficult to believe the pup hasn’t been pecked to death, but there it is, tucked safely under its mother. She’s pushing to birth the last bit of placenta under the hungry eyes of a kelp gull. In a week she’ll be in heat, her mate will demand her favours and she’ll conceive next year’s baby.
Watching wildlife is a big tourist industry on Peninsula Valdes and every season has something different to attract the traveller. Although the southern right whales that migrate between June and December to give birth in the safe waters around Valdes have disappeared by the time I arrive, Magellanic penguins are still feeding their chicks along the Patagonian shore. At Estancia San Lorenzo, at the northern tip of Valdes, the overwhelming smell of regurgitated fish makes me wish I had not stuffed myself with barbecued lamb an hour earlier. Here, the penguin parents are doing their silly walks to the sea to catch fish, and their chicks open their beaks trustingly at anything remotely big and black, like my Nikon camera. When the Almighty created birds, She certainly had fun fashioning the penguins.
Most other wildlife is best seen around the artificial irrigation systems of the estancias (farms). Apart from the ubiquitous sheep, the easiest animals to spot are the graceful guanacos, always eyeing humans curiously as if debating whether we’re harmless enough for a closer look. Rheas, the stumpy cousins of the ostrich, have made up their minds and keep a respectful distance.
The next day I’m on my way to the mountains, hitching a ride with Gustavo and Paula who are working in Puerto Madryn, the gateway to Valdes, and are visiting family in Esquel, the regional administrative centre in the Andes. Leaving Valdes, I become acquainted with the tinamu, a pheasant-like bird. Unlike rheas, tinamus don’t just cross the road in front of us – they panic and change trajectory halfway across. Gustavo slams on the brakes, raising huge amounts of dust so we can never tell whether we’ve dodged or flattened them. It’s hard to put hand on heart and swear we left the roadside tinamu population as we found it, but I promise we tried.
Ever since Bruce Chatwin immersed himself in its vastness and praised its beauty, Patagonia has had a permanent hold on our imaginations. Although geographically it includes the densely forested Andes and a coast that teems with life, it is the plain between that defines it. Focusing in the distance on this interminable stretch of land is akin to revisiting your childhood, when the world was a vast unknowable universe and everything seemed so far away – the future included.
Patagonia may be flat, dry and windy, but it’s certainly not featureless. Humans have played their role here. At Loma Blanca wind turbines break the horizontal monotony. Beyond the cities of Trelew and Gaiman the landscape becomes exciting, as the Ruta Nacional 25, which stretches from Rawson to Tecka, follows the Chubut River, the life-giving aquatic lord of the province.
The ever-present gold-and-green tufts of the coirón, a tussock that has been our main companion in the marine zone, are now giving way to the scrub of the inland steppe. Some of the plants are in bloom: for several kilometres a yolk-yellow carpet of buttercups presses from both sides onto the highway. They are called botón-de-oro and women collect them in baskets. The Tehuelche Indians use them in tea as a remedy against colds.
At kilometre 255, we stop by the Carbon Canyon to exercise our legs. The canyon, with its coal-black walls, is a newly protected area and the walk through the long grass to a small waterfall is short and easy. We find a flat granite surface with recesses clearly carved by humans. Here, the Tehuelche used to sharpen their arrows. It’s a choice location, because opposite grows a duraznillo bush, bearing highly noxious berries. After sharpening their points, the Tehuelche dipped them in its poison. Like a yellow danger sign, the decomposing carcass of a guanaco is lying by the bush.
At Los Altares, our journey’s midpoint, there are signs triumphantly announcing mobile reception: Acá hay siñal cellular. It is the clincher to whether we’ll have a sit-down meal or grab a sandwich and move on. We decide to stay and stare at our smartphones while we eat at Marta’s, the only village inn. There are just three options: chicken with fries, empanadas (meat pies) or hamburgers. Paula points at a recess above our table draped in red with an icon in the middle. She explains to me reverentially that it’s a shrine to Gauchito Gil. He’s a Robin Hood figure of the pampas, who has been performing miracles all over Argentina since he healed, from beyond the grave, the son of the policeman who killed him. Although not canonised, he’s the choice figure for prayer in Argentina’s vast interior.
After Los Altares the road becomes narrower and distinctly worse. There’s more foliage than dusty rock and the sheep herds are larger. By kilometre 411 the mountain ranges first appear, yet they’re still 350 kilometres away. At Tecka, we can finally discern snow on the mountaintops. We fill up at the last petrol station before Esquel. It’s around here we finally lose the quilimbai, a thorny thistle with yellow flowers that’s followed us all the way from the ocean. The sky is cloudy and grey and, for the first time, we notice cows in the fields. The only thing that disturbs the serenity of the uniform, green landscape is the occasional row of cypresses announcing an estancia.
We have been travelling for nine hours when, just before sunset, we reach the gate of the Los Alerces National Park. Gustavo and Sandra drop me off at Hosteria Futalaufquen, a 1940s stone-built hotel that looks upon a glacial lake surrounded by southern birch and cedars.
I’m here to see some giants, but unlike the Patagons of lore, these ones are real.
When the Spanish arrived, this region was full of enormous trees they casually dubbed alerces (larches). The local Mapuche Indians called them lahuán (grandfathers) because they were the oldest and grandest beings in the forest. The Mapuche were right. These titans are closely related to the Californian redwoods and are some of the oldest living things on the planet. All too predictably the Spanish felled them, since their timber was perfect for shipbuilding: tough, yet pliable and light. In 1937 the park was established to protect them, but the trees were still being cut; the last conviction for illegal felling was in Chile only three years ago. Nowadays they are endangered. Although the odd tree might grow alone in some solitary spot, the alerce forest, called the Alerzal, exists in a remote corner where a restricted number of visitors may enter every day.
There is no walking path to the Alerzal, so I board a boat from Puerto Chucao, a small harbour on Lake Menendez. Our 50-strong crowd must dip our shoes in an antiseptic bath before we’re allowed on board. There are deadly fungal spores in the forest and someone has finally started caring about the health of the trees that remain.
It’s a 45-minute trip on the lake to the rather grandiose-sounding Puerto Sagrario, consisting of a single hut where a solitary ranger keeps watch over the forest. This is also Patagonia, captain, but not as we know it. The weather is as changeable as on the plains, but any sunny interludes alternate with dark, saturated clouds that spit their load on us and move on. Patagonia’s landscape varies dramatically because so does the rainfall. On Valdes it’s only 200 millimetres per year. As we go west it rises exponentially: at Esquel it’s 700; at Puerto Chucao 2500; and at the Alerzal it’s 4000.
The alerce that welcomes us is 57 metres high. It has us craning our necks and moving back in a vain attempt to capture its majesty with our cameras. This colossus was alive when Homer wrote his epics; its age is estimated at a whopping 2600 years. Another alerce lies on its side, the hollow of its trunk gazing at us like a haunting museum exhibit. We pass it and follow the path under a gallery of colihue, a perennial bamboo that flowers every 70 years. The stems are brown and withering, because the last time this happened was the year before. At the time, the park was invaded by rats that consumed the seeds covering the forest floor. The rats disappeared as mysteriously and suddenly as they’d arrived when there were no more colihue seeds.
At the end of the trail, we reach a waterfall at Lago Cisne. Several alerces stand around the lake, as they have for centuries, but the ranger draws our attention to a small sapling, no more than 60 centimetres tall with leaves that look like basil. It’s a baby lahuán, only 12 years old. Will it survive the next century? The next millennium? It could, but I know I won’t.
Patagonia certainly humbles you in more ways than one.
Street photography is about story and the way a subject interacts with the surroundings. Rather than trying to nail the right settings or striving for the best possible image quality, simply go for it. Some of the most intriguing street photos are blurry, grainy and even out of focus.
It’s about sharing moments, emotions and perspectives. You want to give your viewer a sense of what the experience felt like. Did the moment make you cheery or miserable? Was it funny or curious or just incredibly boring?
In a great street shot the audience can feel the photographer’s emotion, or that of the subject, because they are invited into a scene that might have lasted only a fraction of a second, yet tells a much deeper narrative.
When it comes to snapping those experiences I might ditch the usual rules, but there are a few things I try to do to increase my chances of capturing them.
Go Wide
Long lenses might seem tempting at first – they allow you to feel less awkward by keeping you at a distance – but using one also means you are roaming the streets with a huge piece of equipment that you have to point directly at your subject. Noticing someone watching you from behind a giant lens can be intimidating and this paparazzi-style method is likely to make a subject feel uncomfortable.
Instead, ditch the creep factor, get in close, smile and shoot with a wider lens. Your images will look and feel much more dynamic and your audience will have a sense of being placed right in the middle of the scene.
Anything between 12 and 50mm is usually a great starting point, and my recommended lens for this is the Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO, as it covers most of that focal range. Prime lenses (lenses without zoom) are a good way to go as they force you to move around to get the right composition, and you don’t get too complacent by standing in one spot and just framing the shot by zooming in or out. Another advantage of wide prime lenses is that they are usually very compact and less in your face, so you’re not as likely to stand out in the crowd.
When you’re close to people be friendly and grin a lot. People tend to return a smile with a smile, so it’s not only healthy, but it also breaks the initial barrier of awkwardness and allows you to capture a more authentic image.
Be Prepared
I tend to leave my camera on if I think I might want to take a photo. There’s nothing worse than spotting a great scene, raising your camera for the shot and watching the opportunity pass through the viewfinder because your camera isn’t switched on. Candid moments are fleeting and you don’t want to waste time with last-minute adjustments.
Usually a shutter speed of at least 1/200sec will freeze most of the movement in a street scene. Alternatively, sometimes a slow shutter speed (1/10sec) can be useful to capture movement as a blur around a stationary subject, adding atmosphere to the shot. You’ll need a very steady hand or great sensor/lens stabilisation for this to work effectively though, which the Olympus OM-D E-M1 offers with its five-axis stabilisation.
Pick Your Subject
Street scenes can be incredibly busy. There’s traffic, constant movement and all sorts of activity going on around the base of buildings. Instead of trying to photograph the whole scene, isolate specific details that tell a story. Find people who are doing something interesting; a stallholder cooking street food, old men chatting over a game of chess outside a cafe, someone walking alone down a street and children playing all make for great shots. Strip it back and hone in on your subject. Simplicity is the key.
Shoot From The Hip
Be quick! To go completely unnoticed, and to get a different perspective, it’s best to keep your camera away from your face while taking a shot. Instead, put it on burst mode (or continuous shooting) and try photographing blindly from the hip by just pointing it towards your subject and taking several photographs in quick succession.
Shooting from the hip can be incredibly helpful in teaching you how to observe your surroundings, as well as familiarising you with your camera’s field of vision. Later, when you do decide to lift your camera to your eye, you’ll know exactly what will fit inside your frame and you’ll be faster at composing a photo.
If you like to have a little more control many new cameras have a flip-up screen, which can be a great tool for taking photos on the street incognito.
Have fun!
Street photography is all about blending in and not being afraid to break the rules, but most of all it is about exploring where you are. Enjoy the walk and soak up the atmosphere of the life around you. Toy with composition to juxtapose people and objects. Capture emotions, contradictions, the tall and the short, the large and the small, the warm and the cold, the light and the dark. Think outside the box and practise, practise, practise!
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