Unless you’ve eaten ugali, you have not eaten. This, Lydia says, is what most Kenyans feel when it comes to their staple of maize flour cooked with boiling water into a thick cake. Lydia teaching me: Most times, that means a portion sliced into…
I remember when I was in Budapest, after four days or so I was ready to move on. I went to the station to get a ticket for the afternoon train. It was more than three hours late, so I went back to the hostel and stayed another day. The next mornin…
Why do we use red dye No. something we can't pronounce when Mom Earth supplies so many tiny miracles all the time? A visit to his village and just 2 minutes in, Wilder cracked open an "achiote" fruit, which has long been used to colo…
After four hours from the final port town of Nauta, the Maranon River forks and the Yanayacu gives way — a calmer, narrower river in the Peruvian Amazon with bright green reeds nestled on either side. Another half hour, and the first thatched-roof…
We are driving along in the tuk-tuk ... the small covered, wooden boats so prevlant in the Amazon, with a small outboard motor and put-putting along. We are on the Amazon, four hours from the nearest port, of Nauta, looking for pink dolphins that…
On the discussion of whether or not my hiking boots can be saved or need to be doused in gasoline and set on fire (of which I am the only one still arguing for saving) ... Me: "Well, they got bad when I fell into an anaconda hole up to my wais…
I'm out of the forest early but with some luck: the two scientists with whom I went three weeks deep into Lago Preto are in town. They returned from the field Sunday and presented a lecture on their new book about effects of climate change in…
Eleven years ago, Dutch visitors took a boat out to Cristina and Victor's home on a manmade island in Lake Titicaca. They stayed nearly two weeks in their house on their manmade floating island, on the world's highest navigatable lake in t…
What Anthony Bourdain tells me, I believe. When I saw his episode of No Reservations on Peru, I paid attention. He said ignore the casino facade and go to Toshiro's sushi. The owner will greet you. It blends Peruvian flavors with traditional s…
