It’s hard to believe this park is only 2 ½ hours from 12 million people and there were so few visitors. Joshua Tree National Park is nearly 800,000 protected acres in Southern California where the Mojave and Colorado deserts converge. We entered the park from the south where the Colorado Desert lies at an elevation of 3,000 feet and climbed northwest into the Mojave at elevations of four and five thousand feet where huge granite boulders rise up among the pinyon pines, junipers, Mojave yuccas, prickly pears in addition to the park’s namesake: the Joshua Trees. Although they can grow up to 40 feet tall (at a rate of an inch per year) the Joshua Tree isn’t a tree at all, but species of yucca.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

After battling mobs of American and European families on holiday in Colorado’s crowded Mesa Verde National Park, we headed west into Utah to find a much less visited park. National Bridges National Monument is a great example of extraordinary display of beauty that is southern Utah. There are three natural bridges in the park, Kachina, Sipapu, and Owachomo, each a natural bridge of a slightly different age. We took a steep and twisting trail down to the river that flows underneath this bridge, Sipapu.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

We needed to return our rented moto by 4pm, so we decided to visit Santorini’s white sand beach before leaving the island. However, there were some road signs that just didn’t make sense and we decided to follow any sign that said beach. To our delight, we found ourselves at the red sand beach. We had to park the moto and walk about 10 minutes (over red rocks and stones), but it was well worth it. The blue water and deep red sand was such an unexpected surprise! It was hard to leave the beautiful spot, but we did return the moto and caught our flight away from paradise and back to reality.

Text and photo by Cara Metell

About 15 miles outside of Ulaanbaatar, we made a sharp left turn off the main two-lane highway and started off-roading it in our Russian van south to the Gobi. For another six days we wouldn’t see another paved road.

Part of the attraction of driving to the Gobi was just to be out in the middle of nothingness: no people, no other vehicles, no trees, no roads, no mountains, no camels, a featureless landscape. This is what I had come to see. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

I drove through Virginia countryside for five hours on my way to Goose Point Recreation area on Philpott Lake, passing scenes like this much of the way. This shot was taken off Route 221 in Floyd County heading north to Roanoke.

I’m fascinated by barns and farm scenes lately—working farms, abandoned barns falling over, the differences in barn architecture as you move from New England to the South, the different ways hay is bundled up for the winter, the amount of hay harvests each region can produce before the winter arrives. This is what I’m thinking about as I wind my way along the roads that skirt the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

Such was the popularity of Anthony that work on the basilica in Padua began immediately after his death in 1231. The site was already attracting pilgrims and it was deemed necessary to raise a proper monument. The exterior was fashioned without a precise architectural style. The elaborate mix of a Romanesque Gothic facade with an eight-domed Byzantine roof and several small belfries give it an eastern look.

St. Anthony was beatified by Pope Gregory IX less than one year after his death. Thirty-two years later the immense Basilica was completed, and the time had come to transfer the body to its new resting place. When the sarcophagus was opened, the body had turned to dust while the saint’s tongue was found miraculously intact and red in color.

Today in the Baroque Chapel of Relics, in the apse at the back of the church, you can see the actual tongue presented in a gold reliquary. Also on display are the saint’s jaw bone and vocal chords.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

A visit to Beirut is not complete without a long stroll along the Corniche. Walk for hours past others out for a leisurely walk, men fishing, kids swimming, teenagers smoking shisha in between cliff dives, and women sunbathing on the sand. All before catching a sunset high on the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean.

Beirutis continue to live and love life despite a recent history of much violence. It seems like everywhere you go there’s a building that’s been bombed out, a bridge that’s been blown up or a local telling you that this is the spot where a politician was assassinated.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

After a vomit-inducing hydrofoil ride from North Cyprus, we docked at Alanya, Turkey—a big city filled with Scandinavian and Russian package tourists. From there we went an hour west to the little town of Side, which was even more densely packed with European package vacationers. From there we moved on to the Lycian coast to the anti-Side resort: Olympos.

We found this ghetto of independent travelers to be as equally annoying as places like Side. However, the great beach in an incredibly beautiful setting made up for the lack of Turkishness, expense, and loud, drunken nineteen year-olds crawling in and out of every treehouse hostel.

Turned off by the whole Olympos scene, we walked 3km north on the beach to the quiet village of Çıralı where we camped alongside Turkish families and enjoyed two days in the sun and sea.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

A Photo Essay of Cajamarca, Peru

By Danielle Krautmann

Charlie and I just got back from a long weekend in Cajamarca, where we celebrated my husband’s 30th birthday. Cajamarca is the city nearest to Cerro Corona, the mine where Charlie works, which is about a tw0-hour drive from the city.  Although Charlie knew he liked Cajamarca, he had never spent much time in the actual town as he’s usually only there for an hour or two between arriving at the airport and going to the mine.  I met Charlie there on a Thursday, and from the moment my plane landed in the middle of the cow field, I fell in love with the place.  Being surrounded by trees, mountains, and green farmlands was just the start of it.  One of my favorite things was being able to walk around without hearing the whistles, kissing noises, and disrespectful comments from Los Hombres.  It is far safer than Lima.

 

 

Our third day, we visited Granja Porcon.  This is a successful cooperative that houses 53 families who all contribute and take stock in the exports of the farm.  Since they don’t allow new members into the coop, marrying between families is encouraged and common.  Incest is best!  I had a dream once that mom made me marry my brother.  Gross!  No offense, Brent.  Members recently decided to allow tourists to visit, and added a zoo and small 10-room hotel to their community.  The drive there took us through beautiful wooded forests.  We drooled over the idea of taking backpacking (trekking) trips through them.  Apparently getting a permit to camp in that area is fairly simple.

On the bus ride there, we stopped to see the work of some stone carvers in the area.  In this photo, Charlie is standing in front of the Inca leader Atahualpa.  Cajamarca has historical significance because its essentially where the Incan empire ended.  In 1952, Francesco Pizarro’s 160 Spanish troops armed with cannons and swords slaughtered 7000 Indiginous people who’s slings and axes were no match.  The Spaniards captured Atahualpa and held him for a ransom for more than a year.  What the Spanish sought was gold, and soon hoards of it began coming in.  Indiginous artifacts and ornaments were melted down to 6000kg of gold and 12,000 kg of silver that would now be worth more than $60 Million US dollars.  Despite the ransom, after learning that Atahualpa was sending for help from his followers in Quito, they killed him by strangulation.  That wasn’t very nice.

We saw women carrying bundles of wood and digging trenches.  I would be curious to know what the men do to pull their weight.

One of the most valuable exports from the farm is Vicunya wool.  Vicunyas are wild relatives of alpacas and their fur is sold for $500 US dollars per kilo.

We visited a shop in the coop where the women wove beautiful rugs and blankets on looms.  They use yarn that they make themselves from sheep wool.  Most of the yarn is colored with natural ingredients from plants and insects.

The zoo housed a surprising variety of animals including an enormous condor, a Puma, the Speckled Bear (only bear native to South America), Jaguars from the jungle of Peru, and the adorable little Peruvian deer that about a third the size of the deer we’re used to seeing in the States.

We were encouraged to feed bread to the bear, who opened his mouth and waited for you to throw it in, and the monkey who reached out through his fence to take the bread from our hands!

 

This is the local fire department in Banos Del Inca.  Complete with cows walking through the field.

The fruit market is enormous and goes up and down both sides of a long street.  Cajamarca’s proximity to the jungle provides them with a large variety of fruits and vegetables.

Here is Charlie standing in front of a woman selling Mamey and Pacae.  Two fruits from the jungle.  Mamey (not your Mamey) is the one that looks like a potato.  The inside is bright orange, and it has a sweet flavor and peach like consistency.  The Pacae is the green bean looking plant.  It has large seeds inside that are covered with a white fleshy substance.  You eat the sweet flesh, not the bean.

This is a woman breastfeeding while she’s selling different varieties of rice and grains.  Cajamarca got its first large grocery store “Metro” a couple years ago.  Before that, I think the majority of people used markets and small stores to get their food.

An outdoor “restaurant” that we ate at.  I had stuffed hen, Charlie ate curried pork.  Both were served with rice and beans.  The clothing you see this woman wearing is the typical dress of the campesinos (peasants).  In the city of Cajamarca, you see plenty of people dressed in typical jeans and t-shirts just as often.  But once you get into the mountains, most of the women are dressed in these wool skirts with petticoats and bright colored sweaters, always with their hair tied back in a long braid.  Their wide-brimmed hats are made from a very fine fiber from the palm tree and serve multiple purposes.  Other than keeping the sun out of their eyes, they use the hats to measure the good they trade.  For example, “I will trade you a half hat of rice for a full hat of beans.”

If we had ordered chicken, it would have been fresh!  These poor chickens were awaiting their demise.

 

One of my favorite views of probably my favorite city of its size in all of Europe, Porto, Portugal is a city I would visit again and again.

Despite the many tourist friendly activities in the city, I somehow avoided most of them and just spent most of my five days wandering through the maze of cobbled streets, admiring the architecture, socializing with university students, staying up until daylight gaining an appreciation to the city’s authentic vibe.

This shot, looking out over the rooftops of Old Porto was taken from the Sé do Porto, the Porto Cathedral, which stands on a rocky outcrop above the city.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno