One Year on Earth

Most of my family on my mother’s side lives in a tiny Minnesotan farming town called Cottonwood (pop. 1,146).  My great-grandmother settled near Cottonwood after she emigrated to the U.S. from the Netherlands in the early 1900s.  She came over on her own; her parents and almost all of her ten siblings stayed behind in the tiny Dutch farming town of Ulestraten (pop. 2,660).

I’ve always had a vague idea that we still had some family in the Netherlands, ((I’ve recently learned the difference between Holland and the Netherlands.  Although most people in the U.S. use the two interchangeably, they’re actually not the same thing.  Holland is the name of two provinces (North Holland and South Holland) located in the western part of the Netherlands.  The Netherlands itself is a nation that includes not only the two Hollands, but ten other provinces as well.)) but I never knew anything about them.  As it turns out, two of my great-grandmother’s nieces still live near Ulestraten, in a similarly diminutive town called Obbicht.  Lies and Inna Gelissen are now in their 80s.  Having never married, the two sisters have lived together for most of their lives.  When they found out that their (very distant) relations were going to be in their country, they welcomed us into their home with open arms.

Shane (my brother who met up with us for a few days), Derek and I arrived on Lies and Inna’s doorstep having no idea what to expect.  Within an hour, we were stuffing ourselves full of lasagna and some German concoction called Tutti-Frutti, learning about what life was like when the Nazis occupied the area during WWII and being challenged to do shots of an unnamed, but highly toxic, foreign brew.  In a word, it was awesome.

After spending a night in their immaculate home, which is full of mementos from their travels around the world (such a nice change from all of the generic-feeling hotels), the five of us piled into our Peugeot and set off in search of Shane’s and my roots.  We stopped into the church where my great-grandmother was baptized.  On our way out, we ran into a woman and a baby who, as Lies and Inna explained, were related to us.  Distant relations, sure, but meeting them made the world feel very small.  Later on, we visited the cemetery where my great-great-grandparents are buried.  Although both of them died long before I was born, I felt incredibly connected to them as I stood there in the sun at the foot of their carefully tended graves.  I guess family ties are strong enough to survive separation by both generations and an ocean.

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When I was in college at the University of Michigan, my favorite Ann Arbor restaurant was a place called Zanzibar.  My favorite thing about Zanzibar was this dessert they served; a lime tart with slices of fresh mango on top, it was basically dessert utopia.  I hadn’t had that dessert since I graduated from college eight years ago.  And then, a week or so ago, I found it again, this time in a place that itself felt a lot like utopia–Zanzibar, Tanzania. 

The non-restaurant version of Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Tanzania.  Although it’s technically part of Tanzania, Zanzibar feels like an entirely different country.  Unlike its mainland neighbor, Zanzibar is a conservative, Sunni Muslim society.  Burqa-clad women share the streets here with barefoot children and laid-back fruit vendors.  Many people in Zanzibar make their living from the sea; some gather seaweed to use as fertilizer, others catch fish to sell to the post-safari, beach-combing tourists who visit the island each year. 

Mike, Mindy, Derek and I were some of those tourists.  We spent a delightful four days relaxing by the pool of our very tropical-feeling resort (complete with its wonderful desserts) and scuba-diving in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean.  Then we headed to Stone Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is a warren of winding lanes and beautiful mosques.  (On a random note, it’s also famous as the birthplace of the late Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen!)  After spending a day exploring the history-packed town, it was time to say goodbye, both to the Sontags and to Africa.  We were on our way to Europe!

As we drove through South Africa, we met a lot of locals who were eager to hear which parts of their country we’d seen already and which ones we were planning to visit next. Upon hearing our schedule, a lot of them said something along the lines of, “Just wait until you get to Cape Town. You’ll love it.” How right they were.

I loved our time in Cape Town so much that I’m afraid I’ve become a bit evangelical about the place. (If you know me personally (or maybe even if you don’t), be prepared for me to try to convince you to go there as soon as you possibly can.) Why I am such a fan of Cape Town? This short list just scrapes the surface:

(1) Its natural wonders are both incredible and incredibly close by. Table Mountain is right in the middle of town, more or less. It serves as both a beautiful addition to the skyline and a fantastic vantage point from which to look out over the city. We rode a cable car to the top of the mountain and spent a happy couple of hours wandering along its well-maintained trails and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that the mountaintop is completely flat. Afterwards, we headed over to Signal Hill to watch the sun setting over the Atlantic Ocean and the city lights slowing turning on. Gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, less than an hour outside of Cape Town lies the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. We took a very, very windy hike along the rocks above the park’s spectacular coastline and ended up at the Cape of Good Hope itself. Although it’s often given credit as such, the Cape of Good Hope isn’t the southernmost part of Africa (that honor goes to Cape Agulhas, a little bit to the east). The Cape of Good Hope is, however, the southwesternmost point. That phrase may not look as good on a t-shirt, but it’s something…

On the way to the nature reserve, we stopped at Boulders Beach, which is famous for being home to a colony of 3000 penguins. These penguins were formerly called “jackass penguins,” which is not a reflection on their character, but rather on the donkey-like noise they make. They’ve recently been upgraded to a new name and are now simply called “African penguins.” The walkways along the beach allowed us great views of the penguins, who seemed to be very used to the presence of humans. (We even had the opportunity to swim with the little cuties. Seeing as how it was about 55 degrees, however, we passed.)

(2) It’s an incredibly cosmopolitan city. As such, it has all the gourmet food, excellent shopping and, err, dirty martinis anyone could ever want.

(3) Its tragic history has been shaped into lessons for future generations. While in Cape Town, we visited Robben Island, home of the prison in which Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment. (The entire island is now a museum.) Our bus tour–sadly, there’s really no other way to see the island–took us past the lime quarry where Mandela and other prisoners slaved in the heat. We were then led through the prison and to Mandela’s cell by, amazingly enough, a man who was incarcerated on the island for 7 years because of his work with the African National Congress. Our guide had some amazing stories to tell about his time on the island, and he seemed remarkably able to talk about his experiences without getting angry.

We also stopped in at the District Six Museum, a moving museum about a once-vibrant, diverse neighborhood that was bulldozed during apartheid in an attempt to turn the district into an all-white area. Some 50,000 people were forcibly relocated to what were essentially slums. Many of the people who were evicted from their homes have returned to the museum to mark on a map the location of their former houses and nearby landmarks. Since democracy arrived in South Africa, the government has prioritized the rebuilding of District Six and the return of its land to its former residents, but its progress has been slow.

(4) It’s–finally!–diverse. We have been shocked at how racially divided South Africa is. We were happy to see that, in Cape Town, people of all races seem to mix more easily. It was a really nice change.

If those reasons aren’t enough to convince you to make the trip, I’ve got plenty more…

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Hard-working folks in South Africa’s big cities have plenty of options to turn to when they need a break.  Among the best are the Drakensberg Mountains (just a few hours from Durban) and the Wild Coast (an hour or so from East London).   Given that we’ve been on a break for, err, the last nine months or so, we’re not really in need of much R & R, but we decided to check them out anyway.  (Tough life, I know…)

The Drakensbergs, or “Dragon Mountains,” are the second-largest in Africa.  They’re broken up into three sections, the Northern, the Central and the Southern.   We chose the first, primarily because of the Amphitheater, its most famous attraction.  A five-mile-long wall of towering rock, the Amphitheater is flanked by two 10,000-foot mountains, and it’s gorgeous.  We spent a day hiking over rolling hills to the rocky gorge at its base and were rewarded with stunning views and a perfect spot for a picnic.

A few days later, we continued our hike, this time along the Wild Coast.  The Wild Coast stretches for 200 miles along South Africa’s southeastern coast and houses remote coves, endless sandy beaches and some of the most interesting people in the country.  Great swaths of the area are inhabited by the Xhosa, whose name is pronounced with a clicking sound that we are incapable of making.  (The Xhosa language itself contains an amazing 15 different kinds of clicks!)  The Xhosa are some of the most superstitious people around.  Many of them believe in witchcraft, and it’s not uncommon for them to burn women whom they consider to be witches.   Deceased ancestors are a very important part of Xhosa culture; they serve as go-betweens between living Xhosa and the gods.

This last fact is an important part of the incredible circumstances that led to the near-demise of the Xhosa people in the 1850s.  In 1856, a teenage girl named Nongqawse went down to the banks of a stream (which we walked past on our hike) to help keep birds away from her uncle’s fields.  When she returned, she announced that she had met with the spirits of her dead ancestors, who told her that they had a way to help the Xhosa people recover from the hard times in which they’d recently found themselves.  (At the time, their cattle were dying en masse from European diseases and their chiefs were weary from trying to defend their territory against the land-hungry Boers.)

As the story went, if the Xhosa people demonstrated their belief in the spirits of their ancestors by slaughtering their cattle and refusing to cultivate their fields, the ancestors would reward them by returning from the dead, doubling the number of their cattle, multiplying their stores of grain and rendering old people young again.  For many people, this was a way to salvation.  Over 100,000 believers slaughtered their cattle and abandoned their fields.  A significant number of nonbelievers, however, refused to.  The ancestors never showed up, and a large percentage of the believers slowly starved to death.  Many were sold into slavery by the British governor of the province.  Today, some Xhosa (including one of our guides along our walk) believe that their ancestors refused to return because of the nonbelievers’ failure to abide by their instructions.

Many Xhosa live in an area of the Wild Coast known as the Transkei, which is an apartheid-era “homeland” to which black people were forced to relocate during the sad decades leading up to the 1991 liberation.  Nelson Mandela, a Xhosa himself, was born and raised here.

Today, both the Transkei and the Wild Coast’s beaches are largely uninhabited.  We hiked along the beach for almost three days and encountered very few people, other than our guide and the staff who ran the guesthouses in which we stayed every night.  What we did see were dolphins gliding through the waves (it seems they like to “surf”), cows using the shoreline as a salt lick, a shipwreck with a funny story behind it (watch the video for more details) and even, lucky for us, a whale.  There are few things in the world that I like more than walking on the beach, and I’m happy to say that, after days of doing nothing but, I may have had my fill–at least for a little while…

Drakensberg:

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Wild Coast:

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Google Video

I left India’s Andaman Islands last December convinced that I had just experienced the best scuba diving in the world.  At that point, I’d only been certified for a few months, but I’d been diving enough to recognize what was just ok and what was stunning.  Three dives in South Africa’s Sodwana Bay redefined for me just what “stunning” meant.

Our lack of a waterproof camera case means that I don’t have photographic evidence of our time under the sea, but I’ll sum it up like this: it was like swimming in a huge, pristine aquarium.  During our second dive, the water was so clear that our vision was virtually unlimited–that almost never happens.  And so we fell in love with Sodwana Bay’s underwater world.

Sodwana Bay is part of South Africa’s St. Lucia Wetland Park.  As it turns out, St. Lucia has a lot to offer out of the water as well.  A Unesco World Heritage Site, the park protects five different ecosystems, from coral reefs and beaches to lakes, wetlands, woodlands and coastal forests.

We spent some time in St. Lucia Estuary exploring a few of the ecosystems.  Drifting down the estuary (an estuary is like a river, only it has brackish, rather than fresh, water), we explored St. Lucia’s wetlands and the crocodile and hippo families they contained.  A note about hippos–did you know that they’re the deadliest animals on earth?!?  60% of all people who are killed by animals are killed by hippos.  And the thing I can’t figure out is this–hippos are vegetarians!  They don’t even eat the humans they crush with their gigantic teeth.  As the woman who ran our B&B in St. Lucia put it, “I guess they’re just really cranky!”

Walking among the sand dunes the next day, we reveled in the fact that we had miles of gorgeous beachfront all to ourselves.  (The beach was so clean and the sand so hard-packed that the clouds were actually reflected on the shoreline–amazing!)  To get to the beach, we had to drive through a wildlife reserve where, once again, we were able to see zebras and warthogs in their natural environment.  Later that day, we stopped in at the Crocodile Center.  We were able to see all kinds of crocs close up, if not exactly in their natural habitats.  We’ve been getting so spoiled by South Africa’s incredible outdoors that it’s going to be really hard for us to leave this amazing place!

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Officially opened to the public in 1927, South Africa’s Kruger National Park is the oldest and largest game reserve in the world.  Its 6.2 million acres play home to more than 500 species of birds and 147 kinds of mammals, among them 31,000 wildebeests, 23,000 zebras and 7,000 giraffes.  The park also has large numbers of what’s known in game reserves as the “Big Five”: black rhinos, cape buffalo, elephants, leopards and lions.

On our trip to Kruger, we saw two of the Big Five, the elephants and the buffalo, but the only cat we saw was one with a capital C–Catherine, one of my best friends from law school.  Cat’s now a student at the South Africa Wildlife College, which is located right outside Kruger’s Orpen Gate.  (Definitely not a bad way to take a break from the law for a little while…)

Cat, Derek and I took a night drive through the park one evening.  After we climbed aboard a huge jeep that was decked out with high-powered spotlights, our guide drove us around the park at a speed slow enough for us to spot animals that are often nowhere to be seen during the daylight hours.  One of our favorite sightings was a baby hyena, who was so deceptively cuddly-looking that I wanted to give him a squeeze.

Derek and I also took a self-guided daytime drive through the park.  Over the course of seven amazing hours (all of which were spent in the safety of the VW Polo–to get out of your car outside of the designated safe areas in Kruger is to risk your life), we saw everything from hippos lazing in the mud to a parade of elephants bound for a watering hole to warthogs who looked almost too ridiculous to be real.

One of my favorite moments, however, came early in our drive.  Maybe 30 feet in the distance, we spotted a pair of giraffes grazing on the treetops.  They were the first giraffes I’d ever seen outside of the confines of the zoo, and I have to say, it was almost a religious experience.  I’m completely amazed that creatures like them and creatures like us can inhabit the same earth.

Our quest for the big cats will continue.  In a way, though, it’s almost a good thing that we haven’t seen them yet.  Three weeks from now, we’re going on a Tanzanian safari with some of our best friends from Nashville, and I’m sure we’ll see lions, leopards and cheetahs aplenty.  For now, though, the anticipation is half the fun.

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Few things say “adventure” like the idea of a road trip.  Grabbing a map and favorite travel companion, hopping into the car and setting off into the Great Unknown for a few days–there’s nothing better.  Except for road tripping not for just a few days, but instead for 31.  That’s better.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing.  Over the course of the next 35 days, we’ll be driving through South Africa, from Johannesburg to Cape Town.  Along the way, we’ll stop, well, pretty much wherever we want to.  (That’s the beauty of having our own wheels–in this case in the form of a bright blue VW Polo.)

Of course, we’re sure we’ll hit some potholes–both literal and figurative–along the way.  The first is that, here in South Africa, they drive on the left side of the road, and the only cars available for rent are stick shifts.  Those who know me well are aware that I can barely drive an automatic on the right side of the road.  So stay tuned…it may get interesting.  (Or, more likely, Derek will drive the whole way and spare us both the trouble of fearing for our lives.)

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: To us, Buenos Aires feels a lot like home.  It’s not just that we rented an apartment, though that has certainly helped.  It’s also that Buenos Aires often seems to us like a combination of some of the best parts of a few of the American cities that we love so much.  One of the only differences between the Soho in Buenos Aires and the one in NYC is that BAers don’t capitalize the H in their version.  But the Argentine neighborhood has the same expensive boutiques and trendy cafes, the same small dogs and the same well-dressed women as its northern cousin.  Like Baltimore, Buenos Aires recently refurbished the area around its harbor, adding lots of loft apartments and upscale restaurants.  Puerto Madero now feels a lot like Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  And, like so many American cities, Buenos Aires is dotted with green spaces, public squares and world-class museums, our favorite of which was the MALBA, BA’s modern art museum. 

Buenos Aires also has a flavor all its own.  Locals and tourists alike visit the Museo Eva Peron, a museum created to “spread the life, work and ideology” of Eva Duarte de Peron (known to most as, simply, “Evita”).  Argentina’s most beloved first lady, Evita was only 33 years old when she died of cancer in 1952.  In the Recoleta Cemetery, groups of schoolchildren pause in front of Evita’s grave before continuing on to inspect the luxurious burial sites of the rest of the city’s richest and most powerful.  And, of course, tango is everywhere.  It’s at the Sunday street fair in San Telmo, where dancers perform alongside craft booths and empanada vendors.  It’s danced for tourists at fancy hotels and by locals in late-night clubs. 

Walking the streets of Buenos Aires, taking in the familiar and the novel, it’s easy to forget about Argentina’s very messy, very recent history.  Some of the most dramatic moments in Argentine history began after military man Juan Domingo Peron, Evita’s husband, won the presidency in 1946 and then again in 1952.  Worshipped by some and loathed by others, he used his power to raise wages and pensions, to improve working conditions and to guarantee job security. He also expanded the country’s bureaucracy and splurged on unsustainable public works projects that squandered Argentina’s post-World War II surpluses.  After being overthrown in 1955, the widower retreated to Spain, where he eventually married an exotic dancer.  Dictators ruled Argentina in the years that followed Juan Peron’s departure, punctuated by periods of civilian rule and a particularly ridiculous time that saw the exotic dancer herself ascend to the presidency.  Not surprisingly, the dancer was ultimately overthrown, after which the military took over and Argentina’s political situation took a turn for the worse. 

In 1976, a three-man junta imposed ferocious military discipline on the country in a “Dirty War” ostensibly undertaken to oust corrupt politicians and to prevent guerilla activity.  Instead, the repression struck mostly the general population, ultimately resulting in the deaths of as many as 30,000 Argentineans.  Most of the victims, who were largely trade-unionists, students and activists, simply “disappeared,” never to be seen again.  The silent marches of some of their mothers in BA’s Plaza de Mayo became a well-known image of Argentine suffering during those times.  (In fact, both Sting and Bono have written songs about the plight of these Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.)

What’s more, in 2002, in the midst of a country-wide economic crisis, the Argentine peso lost almost 75% of its value virtually overnight. All those with money in the bank saw their savings evaporate before their eyes.  The economy sunk into a Great Depression-like stagnation; unemployment and homelessness rose and strikes and picket lines became a popular way for Argentineans to express their frustrations with their government’s shortfalls.

Today, however, Argentina’s economy is on the rise and, from what we could tell, people here in Buenos Aires feel good about their future and proud of their world-class city.  Maybe, once in awhile, they feel like saying to the rest of the world, “Don’t cry for us… We’re Argentina.”  (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Just under two weeks ago, we arrived in Buenos Aires and, rather than checking into yet another hotel, we headed home.   We’d heard that apartment rentals are really common among visitors who come to this amazing city for more than a couple of days, and so, a few weeks ago, we started browsing some of this area’s many apartment-rental websites.  In no time at all, I’d found the apartment version of my Mr. Right.  Its name was 2698 Libertador, and it had not only a gourmet kitchen but a washing machine; not only a comfy-looking couch but a DVD player.   I started daydreaming about all of the meals we were going to cook, all of the cable TV we were going to watch and, yes, even all of the laundry we were going to do.

I understand that what I just wrote sounds really, really lame.  I mean, Derek and I are living the dream, right?  We’re supposed to be out experiencing the world, not at home separating our lights from our darks.  But there you have it.  After eight months on the road, everything in our backpacks (not to mention the backpacks themselves) needed to be washed, and we desperately needed to sleep in the same bed for more than a few nights in a row.   It was time to take a break.

After almost two weeks here, we’ve really settled in.  We got a Blockbuster membership.  (Incidentally, at the only Blockbuster I’ve ever known to sell olives alongide the popcorn… It gave me a little insight into the Argentine palate!)  We joined a gym. ((A funny note about the gym–it runs on Buenos Aires time, i.e., about 3 hours later than what we were used to at home.  This means that most restaurants here don’t open until 8:30 p.m., and they fill up far later than that.  We got seated for dinner last night at 12:15 a.m., and the place was still packed when we left.  The doors of some bars stay locked until at least 2:00 a.m.  And, where classes at the Nashville YMCA start around 5:30 a.m., the ones at the Buenos Aires Well Club don’t kick off until 8:00 a.m.  I guess that means no one’s at their desks by 8:30/9:00!))  Hugo, our doorman, recognizes us now.  We acquired a favorite grocery store and, within it, a favorite cashier.  (She’s the one who doesn’t cringe at my very weak attempts at Spanish.)  I went running enough times that I no longer get lost upon walking out of the door.  In truth, we kind of feel like we’ve moved to a Spanish-speaking version of NYC’s Upper East Side.  Our new ‘hood is all nannies and dogwalkers and ladies who lunch.  Stepping out of our apartment, we can walk to boutiques, art galleries and trendy cafes in less than five minutes. 

We were technically supposed to move out a few days ago, but neither of us could bear the thought of leaving just yet.  And so here we are.  It’s Saturday night and, while we were supposed to head to a tango bar to watch the city’s best dancers as they tango the night away, I’d say there’s fairly good chance we’ll stay in tonight.  Just because we can. 

These days, when we meet new people and tell them how long we’ve been traveling, their first question is usually something along the lines of “What’s your favorite place been so far?” That’s an impossible question for us to answer; we’ve seen so many incredible places that we can’t pick just one.  Even speaking in superlatives–the best, the worst, the prettiest, the most interesting–is generally impossible for us.  Our visit to Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park, however, made superlatives fairly easy for once.  Without question, Torres del Paine plays home to the most beautiful natural landscapes we’ve ever seen in our lives.

Surrounded by an eastern portion of the Andes that is known as the Paine mountain range, the 598,000-acre park is most famous for two sets of peaks–the Torres del Paine (“towers of blue”) and the Cuernos del Paine (“horns of blue”), neither of which actually look blue.  Both the towers and the horns were formed when subterranean flows of magma got trapped under the earth’s surface and subsequently hardened into granite underground.  Millions of years’ worth of erosion by snow, water and ice carved away the softer land that surrounded the hard stone and left the peaks standing alone in their majesty.  Surrounding these formations are countless turquoise lakes (it’s apparently their color that inspired the “blue” moniker), golden fields, frigid glacial streams and the icy blue glaciers that feed them, endangered species like the guanaco (like the vicunas we met earlier in Chile, these guys are also cousins of the llama) and the occasional puma.

The park is nearly as hard to get to as it is gorgeous.  About 70 miles away from the nearest large town, it’s hard for a lot of short-term visitors to see too much of it.  Those with some time on their hands, however, can make the park their home for a few days, keeping in mind that they’ll need to either bring with them everything they’re going to need during their stay–there are no drug stores or snack shops to be found–or plan on partaking in the meals offered by the park’s small campgrounds and refugios.  Or they can choose to spend their children’s college funds on a stay at the all-inclusive Hotel Salto Chico, which is run by a luxury resort operator known as “explora.”  (The lowercase “e” should give you a clue as to how fancy its resorts are…)  With apologies to our future children, we, err, made this last choice.

This was not your father’s stuffy luxury resort, folks. It was apparently started by a wealthy man who loved exploring the outdoors but wanted to return from his time in the wilderness to find a gourmet meal and four-star accommodations waiting for him.  I’m sure it goes without saying that we enjoyed living his dream for four days.  Each night, we met with one of the many professional guides on staff and decided on the next day’s adventure.  And then, in the morning, we ate a fantastic breakfast and set off into the wild.  We never had to consult a map; our guide always knew the way.  We never had to pack a lunch; our guide had already done that for us.  We felt a little spoiled, but after more than seven months of planning our days on our own, it was nice to turn the job over to someone else for a few days!

While the resort itself was incredible, the jaw-dropping mountain scenery we saw when we walked out the door blew it away.  One day, we hiked to the Grey Glacier.  The glacier is a frozen finger of the Southern Ice Cap, which is the largest body of ice in South America that’s still left over from the last Ice Age.  The glacier looked to us like an immense river that had been frozen in time and like an incredible field of light blue meringue. (What can I say?  I think we were pretty hungry by the time we reached the glacier…)  House-sized chunks of bright blue ice recently separately from the glacier floated in the water nearby, making for an incredibly mystical landscape.

A few days later, we rode horses through crystal clear rivers in the company of gauchos whose families had been tending livestock on those grounds for generations.  In another trip highlight, we hiked through rain, snow, wind and, ultimately, sunshine to the base of the Cuernos del Paine.  The weather in the park changes so quickly that it’s often possible to experience each of the four seasons over the course of an hour.  (“There’s no such thing as bad weather,” said our guide, “only bad clothing.”)

Another day, we wandered through the park’s vast plains or, as they’re called here, “pampas,” in search of wildlife.  We were secretly hoping to see a condor, the gigantic bird (up to a ten-foot wingspan!) that is considered a symbol of health and power by many Andean cultures.  We were told that such a sighting was fairly unlikely.  In keeping with the incredible luck that we’ve had for most of this trip, we saw not one, but fourteen condors. Sitting on top of a huge rock in the middle of what could very possibly be the most beautiful land on earth, watching condors soar just above our heads, we felt very lucky, indeed.

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