mendoza, argentina

mendoza, argentina, a set on Flickr.

umm, this is what we call catch up! for now some photos of mendoza...later i'll explain!

valparaiso ,chile

Valparaiso was a small port town an hour outside Santiago. We'd heard good things about it on our way South from Peru, and Santiago was just too big, at the time, to relate to. And lucky for it. What we found we often refer to as a mini-San Francisco. It was dynamic and energized with mysteries around every corner, winding alleys and forgotten stairwells. Ascensors, each with an individual personality and name, carried you through the steep stacks of buildings. Graffiti, beautifying mural art, adorned our walks.

It was the first time we felt like our overdrawn budget was being well spent in Chile. It was the first time we'd had a bath tub in 9 months.

Valparaiso was by far our favorite city outside of our home in Cuzco. -michael

valparaiso ,chile, a set on Flickr

NOS VEMOS

We left Cuzco floated on a river of tearful goodbyes. As many from our friend as from the campesino mamachas, and caseras at our local Mercado. The locals (not the new generation of mestizos) don´t handle our easy going, transitive lifestyle as casually as we assume. The idea of “leaving” is harsh and sudden, and cries of dangers away from home and family. Home and family are their dearest possessions. And, so, tears flow, even from Berta and her sisters, with whom we dedicatedly bought all our market goods (thus the reference “casera”). And an especially difficult and surprising farewell from Señora Isidora´s Mama, who couldn´t recognize us from every other passing gringo until just a month ago. But, finally, greeted us cheerfully everyday with “Hola Mami” and “Wee-nas dias Papi”. As we parted on our last day, she posed for a beautiful picture before realizing what the day meant, and begged us to be safe, willed our return, implored us from behind dark, watery eyes. She clasped our hands and kissed us each directly on the lips.

::sigh::

The beauty of these people is unmistakeably Cuzquenian Quechua, and immediately transformed as we traveled to the coast of Lima, and continued North to Piura. It´s a genuine culture of the Andees. It is Quechua. It is now home to our hearts.

salar de uyuni tour, Bolivia

this was our 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, the largest salt plain in the world. It's a jeep tour, which was good, because I was pretty ill with the flu (I'm sure our fellow travelers really appreciated that!). It was quite stunning, and incredible landscape, our driver was great...which if you do any research on this tour, you'll find is not always the case. We actually were in a 4x4, which also, is not always a given, and did see some unlucky gringos trying to push their truck out of the mud! It really, truly is a photographers dream, (Eric, this one's for you) we tried but the sun wasn't out too much for us....however, incredible none the less.

salar de uyuni, a set on Flickr.