Burning the Inheritance

Valparaiso is a city of about 300,000 (1,000,000 in the metropolitan area) 1-1/2 hours west of Santiago on the Pacific coast of Chile. While it has a reputation for being a fairly dangerous city, we found it to be incredibly welcoming and friendly for the most part (there are some areas to avoid). Street Art…

We arrived in Santiago excited to meet up with our youngest and to explore this very cool city together. We felt like we had some familiarity with Santiago due to enjoying a close friend of our children’s photos over the many years he resided in the city. We were all struck by how much more…

From Buenos Aires, we travelled south to (literally?) the end of the world. We travelled from Ushuaia, Argentina to El Calafate and El Chalten passing through Punta Arenas and and Puerto Natales, Chile along the way. All of these places share being gateways to the great outdoors of Patagonia, but each also had its own…

Sorry, but at times it’s difficult not to be an architect… The place we stayed in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo was pretty interesting. I couldn’t get a construction date but the evidence suggests it was built in the early twentieth century. The street façade (top right) is somewhat traditional but without much…

On our second day in Buenos Aires we took a tour of La Boca barrio which was one of Buenos Aires’ earliest settlements. The tango may have originated in this neighborhood and was used to describe the mix of music and dancing in the late 18th century in this community. Tangos were originally banned because…

We stayed in the neighborhood of San Telmo, one of the oldest districts and part of the old city, dating back to the 1700s. The nineteenth century architecture throughout the neighborhood reveals the brief period when this was one of Buenos Aires’ wealthier districts. Improved infrastructure including sewer lines and gas lights installed in 1852…

Buenos Aires is the first big South American city we have encountered – 15.5 million people, second only to Sao Paulo, Brazil. For perspective, almost twice the size of New York City and almost ten times the size of Philadelphia. Perhaps more interestingly, it was founded in 1636, almost 100 years before NYC and almost…

We hiked up to the Castle de San Felipe de Barajas in Cartagena for awesome views of the city. The castle is a fortress built in 1536 by the Spaniards. There is a huge Colombian flag at the top, with the colors representing the abundant gold in Colombia, blue for the country’s seas, and red,…

As you can see Getsemani, a small neighborhood in Cartagena is colorful and bold. Many of the residents’ struggles and history can be found in the murals that cover most surfaces. Our tour guide, Luis, was a passionate Colombian who had much to say as a lifelong resident about gentrification. As is often the case…

Cartagena Colombia is a beautiful warm city. We stayed in the old city, walked along the cobblestone streets, and admired all of the beautiful flowers in full bloom. For the first few days we met up with the remaining boat crew for meals and tours, it was fun running into people we know. This was…