April 7, 2010

Amazing Cascades and Scary Spiders

photos

Somewhere in the middle of Guatemala, there is a beautiful place called Semuc Champey. It is surrounded by hills covered with thick forests, cut by clean and refreshing rivers, and drilled by mysterious caves inhabited by thousands of bats. There were also scary spider-like creatures in one of these caves, which made Marta stay at home, of course. But probably the most amazing place was the series of several calm cascades with pools of crystal clear water in between. Marta was exploring their underwater part (she is still addicted to diving).  I was admiring the interesting engineering design of Nature – most of the river water was actually passing under the pools, forming a 300m long bridge!

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April 1, 2010

Dry and boring facts on diving by Maciek, the genuine nerd

1) It is not the tropical forests that form the “lungs of our planet”. It is the oceans – 70% of oxygen is created there.

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February 25, 2010

Nicaragua

photos

Nicaragua has the largest lake (Lake Nicaragua) in Central America, with fresh water sharks and Ometepe, a double-volcano island in the middle.
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February 16, 2010

Magic place

photos

No wonder why Christopher Columbus who reached the wild coasts of Central America on his last voyage in 1503, before even stepping onto this land named it “Costa Rica”. This entire country is greener then I imagined, covered entirely with thick, rich, humid, vaporous jungle.

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February 4, 2010

Salsa Colombia, i.e., South of Colombia

Salento photos

No salsa photos, sorry

Colombia is thought to be dangerous, with cocaine mafia every corner and guerrilla fighters behind every tree. We’ve traversed its green heart without any problems. It is a beautiful country still to be discovered by tourists who for many years kept out of here. Read the rest of this entry »

January 12, 2010

Aconcagua in a weekend *

photos

map

* almost;  round trip from the base camp

Have you ever seen the book series ‘x in a weekend’ e.g., Tennis, Skiing, Sailing – a crash course manual that should teach you this activity in one weekend only? Well, in the case of climbing Aconcagua, this title could be indeed true. We’ve done it ourselves, almost. Read the rest of this entry »

January 3, 2010

New Year Eve at 4200m

photos

map

Easter Island was nice, but a bit too low in altitude for us – a bit too much of air to breathe. When we came back onto the continent, we went straight to the mountains around Mendoza, Argentina, to the region of Cordon del Plata. It was such a relief to sleep at 4200m, Read the rest of this entry »

December 26, 2009

Moai Christmas from Easter Island!

(photos, moto video)

You probably heard about Easter Island (or Rapa Nui) before. Especially about its people, who, completely devoted to sculpturing, almost led to the extinction of their own civilization (with some “help” from outside).

What you might not know, is that Read the rest of this entry »

December 15, 2009

Torres del Paine – the W trekking

(photos)

The hike we did is in the shape of a letter “W”, and is called so. We started with an “I” hike. Next, we continued to “L”. On day three, we already drew “U”, and one day later the entire “W” was done. Read the rest of this entry »

December 7, 2009

Perito Moreno Glacier

(photos)

Forget Swiss Aletsch or French Merde Glace (I meant Mer de Glace) on the slopes of Mont Blanc! The glacier Perito Moreno knocked our socks off! It is a 5km wide, 30km long, river of ice. More importantly, it ends directly in a lake, in a form of a 60m tall wall of ice. Read the rest of this entry »