Today we welcome Tomás Vera, founder and Creative Director of Verdi Design in Bogota, Colombia. Tomás founded his company after the untimely passing of his father, Carlos Vera Dieppa, a pioneer in woven rugs made with natural fibers. He landed back in South...
On this episode, Jake Standerfer of Coffee Culture Coffee Roasters, a roaster and pioneer in specialty coffee in Santiago joins us to talk all things coffee. In the late aughts, Jake began roasting coffee in his bathroom, kicking off his largely self-taught,...
We are thrilled to welcome Santiago Achaval, an icon in Argentine wine who has been heralded as a “Master of Malbec” and considered one of South America’s most revered winemakers. Santiago joins Liz to discuss how the wine “virus” infected him with a passion...
My first glimpse of Iguazu Falls was in the 1986 film, The Mission, with Roberto de Niro and Jeremy Irons. In the opening scene, set in 17th century Iguazu, a Jesuit missionary priest is tied to a wooden cross and pushed into the swirling Iguazu River....
Up until last month, we lived in an age of constant movement and fluidity, open international borders, and an ebb and flow of coming and going. We moved liberally all over the place, and to some degree, probably took it for granted, too. Then one day in...
I am standing in an ancient forest with a tree canopy so tall it masks the sun. The trees reach high into the heavens above me. I am surrounded by the cold “jungle”, the selva valdiviana, a dense rainforest in the south of Chile. I survey my...
The word artisan is born from the Latin verb, artire, which defines an artisan as a worker, in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand. The mention of an artisan immediately conjures up visions of a craftsman sitting quietly...
Last week I turned 42. I finally feel I can really celebrate what it means to be "40” (well, now 40-something). When I turned 40, two years ago, I hardly recognized it. I was navigating extremely choppy seas with a newborn (second) baby and...
I recently had a friend visit me in Santiago. One night, we sat down for a chat over a glass of wine while she was editing photos. I was curious to see how she was capturing the city in images. To my surprise, Santiago was almost unrecognizable. Sure, there were the...
For years, I dreamed about Ecuador. I had visited before but I had a specific trip in mind that included the Galapagos. I didn't have any immediate plans to go, but nonetheless obsessively researched the hotels, the destinations, the hikes, the snorkeling, and...
It’s that time of year again…and a typical conversation in Chile during the holidays starts off like this: “Que atroz! How terrible! I am muuuyyy busy. You know…it is end of school year, graduation, parties, Christmas, New Year’s and summer vacation. Ayayay es...
Terroir. You may have heard this expression before, or perhaps you might think it’s just another word overused by wine snobs. The reality it is that’s just a French word that the French use to talk about where products come from. And they use it all the time....
“Education is everything. It doesn’t matter what color your hair is, your race, how much money you have, who your parents are. It’s every child’s right. Without it, there’s no future nor change”. –Petit Miribel Meet Marie-Hélène Miribel—also known as “Petit”....
Cities are like people. They show their varying personality to the resident and traveler. It usually has to do with the lenses we project onto her. Depending on the city and person, there might be mutual love, or dislike. Friendship, or enmity. For some people,...
In South America, there’s a serious horse culture that is an integral part of life here. It’s not just gauchos, cowboys, either. The real gauchos are actually in Argentina and Uruguay, but there are Chilean cowboys, huasos in elegant rodeos throughout central...
Dear Friends, It’s been over a year since the last post on this blog. In the blogging world, that basically means forever. I would start a post here and there, but never managed to finish a single one. I wrote many posts in my head, but I never could seem to...
Machu Picchu doesn’t need much of an introduction. The ancient Incan city appears on the bucket lists of many world travelers. Perched 8,000 above sea level in the dense jungle of the southern Peruvian Andes, it was once thought to be a royal estate for the...
The food scene in the Chilean capital is sizzling and truly having its moment. The catalysts? A new generation of chefs who have trained abroad, returned to their country and are digging deep roots in Santiago. They have forged restaurant projects focused on...
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