Posts in Travel
Powering Down on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast

In Manuel Antonio, travelers do more than observe nature: they engage it. Along the Pacific coast of Central America, adventure-lovers encounter some of the planet’s most prolific wildlife.

The journey begins outside of San José, where winding roads lead travelers to a bridge above the Tárcoles River. Along its muddied banks are gargantuan crocodiles fattened by daily ranger feedings, seemingly immobilized. After snapping photographs of these behemoth beasts, you’ll continue towards the Pacific Ocean, but little time will pass before wildlife summons you again.

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Visiting Sossusvlei: a Conservation Trip through the Namib Desert

For the first time in three weeks I am alone, driving from Windhoek toward the Namib Desert beneath a ubiquitous blue sky, its presence above the savannah creating the illusion of a flat, wide Earth. Traffic quiets as the landscape shifts, from dramatic rock piles that converge incongruously to the Naukluft Mountains, a sort of highway toward the dunes.

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Wild Voluntourism: One Story of Working with Big Cats in Namibia

It was pitch-black as I walked to my cabin after my first day of volunteering at a big cat sanctuary in Namibia. Reflecting on my day as I navigated the contours of the dirt path, I recalled grueling work in the bush. Morning devoted to cutting raw horsemeat in preparation for afternoon feedings, outings to which I was not invited, relegated to cleaning a vast aviary where I shoveled dirt and bird feces for several hours, their stains imprinted on my clothes for days to come.

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Pearl Jam: A Culinary and Urban Redevelopment Project in San Antonio

Bundled in their warmest winter attire, more than ten thousand San Antonians gathered at the Pearl Brewery Complex last December for its first annual Tamale Festival, a colorful celebration of a unique holiday tradition: tamales for Christmas. Friends and families shared bites of tamales and empanadas, pulled meat tacos, and sugar-drenched buñeulos while exploring the complex’s grassy public spaces and industrial, eco-friendly buildings. Mariachi bands sang in unison on several makeshift stages while live cooking demonstrations beguiled epicureans of every age.

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