Because travel is better with two - By writer/editor/photographer Melanie Wynne
In Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of my favorite activities was a guided hike through, up and over Los Cardones Ravine, at the junction of two minor rivers.
It’s funny: If you ask me to stroll along a river wash and look at some cacti and rocks, I might shrug my shoulders and see what’s on Netflix. But spin it into “a riverside trek through a cactus forest,” and bam — sold.
One afternoon back in 1985, I was holed up in my high school library, hiding from the strains of adolescent society, when I stumbled across a book about the world’s most extreme destinations. One in particular captured my fancy: Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.
A 41,000 square-mile expanse of desert that gets four inches of rain every thousand years seemed at once more exotic and less overwhelming than being 14 years old. I devoured tales of active volcanoes, hills of salt, miles of marshland, carpets of wildflowers, and strange animals I could scarcely imagine. I vowed to go see it for myself someday.
A few weeks ago, exactly 28 years after I first learned it existed, I did see the Atacama Desert for myself. And you know what? It was simply amazing.
Way better than high school.
The city of San Pedro, capital of the Nueva Vizcaya province in northern Luzon
Continued from
A Philippine Comedy of Errors: Part Nine
The story is almost over. I swear.
But I really don’t want to leave you hanging. I mean, we’ve come this far, right?
This is the tale of the daylight drive back from Banaue to Manila, my last night and day in the capital…
…and what happened after I got home.
My Rollnband-packed suitcase, ready to…roll
I find myself packing a suitcase at least once a month, and have long been a clothes folder rather than a clothes roller.
But when a nice young man from the Pacific Northwest contacted me and asked me to try out his stretchy, two-sided packing bands called Rollnband, I figured I’d give this whole rolling thing a try.
Now that I’ve tried them out on two very different trips, I find myself a roll-up-your-clothes-and-secure-them-with-a-band convert — and here’s why.
Hanging in the Bontoc Museum, a map of the Ifugao and Mountain provinces of northern Luzon, Philippines
Continued from
A Philippine Comedy of Errors: Part Eight
It’s safe to say that the-cave-and-coffins mountain town of Sagada (“sah-gah-dah”) wasn’t my favorite part of this epic sojourn, but the drive from Banaue to Sagada was pretty darn fascinating.
Along the way, I learned very little about what I saw (and am in fact still researching now) but as a person practiced in the art of observation, I can attest to the fact that the mountainous regions of northern Luzon can be a drop-dead gorgeous trip through time.
The only drawback? The sorry shape of the one major road to, in and around these parts, and the fact that it probably won’t be finished before 2018.
