Greetings from Peru

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The Sacred Valley of the Incas


Machu Picchu


Iquitos

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Madrid, Spain: Hunger

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I hope my first few articles somehow gave you some ideas on how to stretch your travel budget. Now that I have the practical talk out of the way, I hope I can share some thoughts and hopefully provide the inspiration you need to embark on your own journey. On that note, I would like to share a poem written by my niece, Rachelle Cruz – a poem inspired by our trip to Spain. HUNGER At La Casa Botin, we suck tentacles stewed in a pocket of hunger. We learn Hemingway dipped his pen in this hunger. Duende bird of ink, your house of deep song and fortress, where even cats listen, stray from their hunger. Sevilla, she swirls her mantón around arms, claps, even dance won’t defy history or Spanish Hunger. There’s a lover in California folding his dress socks, straightening his bookshelf, a mouth in absence won’t satisfy hunger. She tastes her finger of ink from the latticed bowl, I imagine we are descendants of this hunger. Each of us experiences hunger in a differen
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Alaska: Port of Call Ketchikan

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Ketchikan I just had time to muse about my wonderful experience exploring the Inside Passage and some parts of the Tongass National Park while on a cruise to Alaska with my sisters. Our first port of call was Ketchikan, a very small town famous for three things: rain, salmon, and totem poles. So, most of the shore excursions involve rainforest, fish and totem poles. The weather forecast on our arrival was rain, but for a city dubbed as the “rain capital of Alaska”, it was beautiful and sunny when we arrived. The arch sign “the Salmon Capital of the World” greeted us as soon as we got off the ship. I gathered from the sign that Ketchikan was a small enough to explore on our own because only small towns would build or put out signs as tourist attractions to draw crowds. We could have explored the whole town on our own in no time, but we already pre-booked a walking tour. We arrived a couple of hours before the scheduled tour, so we walked around to check the shops out (mostly souvenir
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The Chilean Forest: Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park and the Petrohué River/Falls

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Our drive takes us along the stretch of the road sandwiched between the tranquil Lake Llanquihue set against the looming Osorno Volcano and miles of green valley dotted by farm animals, walled by spring flowers (yellow lupines), and bordered by the Andean Mountain, which rolls and soars in lush waves.  We are heading towards Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park for a walk around the Petrohué Falls. Since leaving Puerto Varas , our guide keeps looking out the window from the motor coach to check if the cloud hanging over the tip of the Osorno Volcano has dissipated.  She wanted to show us the ' breathtaking view of the Osorno Volcano ' advertised in the tour brochure, I guess.  But even screened by clouds, I see in astonishing detail the overwhelming beauty of nature that it excites my awareness. Mirrored in the clear waters of Lake Llanquihue, one of Chile’s largest lakes, are the reflections of the clouds and snow that cover the Osorno Volcano.  T
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