Category: Americas

Tortuguero National Park: Costa Rica’s Caribbean Jungle by Boat

Tortuguero National Park: Costa Rica’s Caribbean Jungle by Boat There are no roads into Tortuguero. You arrive by boat, along a brown channel with forest pressing in from both sides, and you may hear birds, insects and, sometimes, the roar of a howler monkey. This is Tortuguero National Park on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, a […]

Monteverde Cloud Forest: Skywalks and Biodiversity in Costa Rica

Monteverde Cloud Forest: Skywalks and Biodiversity in Costa Rica A narrow trail climbs into cloud. Moss hangs from every branch, orchids grow straight out of the tree trunks, and the loudest sound in the forest is dripping water. This is the cloud forest at Monteverde, Costa Rica, a protected forest in the Tilarán mountains, where […]

Central America Tour: From Panama to Guatemala in 27 Days

Central America Tour: From Panama to Guatemala in 27 Days Four countries, a chain of volcanoes and one of the great ancient civilisations of the Americas: a journey from Panama to Guatemala crosses a narrow strip of land that holds a remarkable amount of variety. From the Panama Canal to the Maya city of Tikal, […]

Panama Canal: Locks, the Gaillard Cut and the Rainforest Railway

Panama Canal: Locks, the Gaillard Cut and the Rainforest Railway A cargo ship stacked high with containers glides into a concrete chamber, the gates close behind it, and the water beneath it begins to rise. The Panama Canal locks lift ships 26 metres over the isthmus and lower them again on the far side, and […]

La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano: A Costa Rica Rainforest Guide

La Fortuna and Arenal Volcano: A Costa Rica Rainforest Guide Rising almost alone above the farmland and rainforest of northern Costa Rica, Arenal Volcano is the kind of mountain a child would draw: a near-perfect cone, often wrapped in a ring of cloud at the summit. At its foot lies La Fortuna, Costa Rica, a […]

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: Maya Villages, Volcanoes and a Lake Cruise

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala: Maya Villages, Volcanoes and a Lake Cruise Lake Atitlan is a deep blue sheet of water about 1,560 metres up in the Guatemalan highlands, walled in by steep green shores and, along the southern side, three volcanic cones. Around its edge stand Maya villages where weaving, markets and traditional dress are still […]

Uros Floating Islands: Totora Reed Engineering on Lake Titicaca

Uros Floating Islands: Totora Reed Engineering on Lake Titicaca A few kilometres east of Puno, in the reed-fringed bay at the western edge of Lake Titicaca, dozens of small islands float on water 3,810 metres above sea level. They are made almost entirely of one plant, the totora reed, and they have to be rebuilt […]

Tiwanaku and Puma Punku: Stone, Ceremony and the Ancient Andes

Tiwanaku and Puma Punku: Stone, Ceremony and the Ancient Andes Long before the Incas, a city on the high plain south of Lake Titicaca drew pilgrims, traders and colonists from across the southern Andes. Tiwanaku, in Bolivia, stands at about 3,850 metres, and at its height, roughly between AD 500 and 1000, it was the […]

Teatro Colón: Opera, Architecture and Civic Culture in Buenos Aires

Teatro Colón: Opera, Architecture and Civic Culture in Buenos Aires Few buildings say as much about the ambitions of a young nation as the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. It took almost two decades, three architects and two deaths to build, and it opened on 25 May 1908, the anniversary of Argentina’s May Revolution, with […]

Tambopata National Reserve: River Forest, Biodiversity and the Madre de Dios

Tambopata National Reserve: River Forest, Biodiversity and the Madre de Dios In south-eastern Peru, the Andes give way abruptly to the lowland rainforest of the Amazon basin, and two rivers, the Madre de Dios and the Tambopata, meet at the frontier town of Puerto Maldonado. South of the town, the Tambopata National Reserve protects more […]

Sillustani Chullpas: Stone Tombs, Ancestors and the Altiplano

Sillustani Chullpas: Stone Tombs, Ancestors and the Altiplano On a windswept peninsula above Lake Umayo, about 34 kilometres from Puno, stone towers stand against the sky like a silent gathering. These are the chullpas of Sillustani, burial towers built by the people of the Altiplano over several centuries to house their dead. The tallest rises […]

Qoricancha and Cusco: Inca Sun Worship beneath a Colonial Convent

Qoricancha and Cusco: Inca Sun Worship beneath a Colonial Convent In the heart of Cusco, a curved wall of perfectly fitted dark stone rises from a terraced garden, and on top of it sits the apse of a Spanish colonial church. Few places in the Americas show the meeting of two civilisations so directly. The […]

Pachacamac: Peru’s Oracle, Pilgrimage Roads and Pre-Inca Sacred Landscape

Pachacamac: Peru’s Oracle, Pilgrimage Roads and Pre-Inca Sacred Landscape About 30 kilometres south of central Lima, where the green Lurín valley meets the Pacific, a low hill of sand-coloured ruins rises out of the desert. For well over a thousand years this was Pachacamac, the most important sanctuary on the Peruvian coast, home to an […]

Ollantaytambo: Inca Planning, Royal Travel and the Sacred Valley

Ollantaytambo: Inca Planning, Royal Travel and the Sacred Valley At the lower end of the Sacred Valley, where the Urubamba River begins to narrow on its way down towards Machu Picchu, the town of Ollantaytambo sits beneath a mountainside carved into steep stone terraces. Many visitors pass through it quickly, on their way to the […]

Machu Picchu Architecture: Terraces, Water and Mountain Design

Machu Picchu Architecture: Terraces, Water and Mountain Design Most first impressions of Machu Picchu are of its setting: granite buildings strung along a narrow ridge high above the Urubamba River, with the sugarloaf peak of Huayna Picchu rising behind. But the setting is also the problem the Inca builders solved. Steep slopes, heavy rainfall and […]

Lake Sandoval: Oxbow Ecology in Peru’s Amazon Rainforest

Lake Sandoval: Oxbow Ecology in Peru’s Amazon Rainforest A short boat ride down the Madre de Dios River from Puerto Maldonado, then a walk through the forest, brings you to the edge of Lake Sandoval. The lake is long, calm and dark, ringed by palm swamp and rainforest, and on still mornings it reflects the […]

Isla del Sol and Moon Island: Inca Myth, Pilgrimage and Lake Titicaca

Isla del Sol and Moon Island: Inca Myth, Pilgrimage and Lake Titicaca For the Incas, the sun was born on an island in Lake Titicaca. Isla del Sol, in Bolivia, and its small neighbour Isla de la Luna, the Moon Island, were among the most sacred places in the Inca empire, the destination of pilgrims […]

Iguazú and Iguaçu Falls: A Shared River, Forest and Borderland

Iguazú and Iguaçu Falls: A Shared River, Forest and Borderland For most of its course the Iguazú River runs quietly west across southern Brazil, broad and brown and island-studded. Then, a little over twenty kilometres before it meets the Paraná, it reaches the edge of a basalt plateau and drops away along a front almost […]

Chinchero Textiles: Weaving, Alpaca Fibre and Andean Knowledge in Peru

Chinchero Textiles: Weaving, Alpaca Fibre and Andean Knowledge in Peru On a high, rolling plain north-west of Cusco, at more than 3,700 metres, the town of Chinchero looks out over patchwork fields towards snow-capped peaks. It has an Inca royal estate, a colonial church built on Inca walls, and a busy Sunday market, but it […]

Andean Explorer: Rail Travel from Cusco to Lake Titicaca

Andean Explorer: Rail Travel from Cusco to Lake Titicaca Between Cusco and Lake Titicaca lies one of the great railway journeys of the Andes: around 385 kilometres of track that climbs out of the valleys of the old Inca heartland, crosses a pass at over 4,300 metres, and runs for hours across the open, treeless […]

South America Cultural and History Tour: A 25-Day Route Across Five Countries

South America Cultural and History Tour: A 25-Day Route Across Five Countries Most journeys through South America choose a single thread: the Inca heartland, the Amazon, or the great cities of the Atlantic coast. A South America cultural tour that runs from Santiago to Rio de Janeiro over 25 days follows all three, and the […]