Taquile is an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, a couple hour boat ride from Puno. The Quechua speaking island, though frequently visited by tourists, still retains a very traditional lifestyle, which includes weaving, traditional food and dress, and mythology. The beautifully illustrated book, Kusikiy: A Child From Taquile,…
Steven Roll, who writes a great blog about Latin American travel, Travel Ojos, asked me a few months ago to contribute a short story in an ebook project he was working on called Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level. I'm happy to say that the free book has been released…
The South America Handbook, begun in 1921 as the Anglo-South American Handbook (before the Royal Mail Steamship Company privatized it in 1924), has been one of the most talked about, written about, and longest continually published guidebooks in the world. The guide doesn’t have the commercial appeal of Lonely Planet…
While this cookbook isn’t directly about Latin American food, it does have relevance – and no, it has nothing to do with the author’s last name being Pizarro (no relation to the conquistador). In Latin America, particularly South America where temperature changes are more prevalent than further north, food is…
This list, my own creation, names 50 of the best books about the South American continent. Some titles date back to the time of conquest, while others were written this year. With the holiday shopping season among us, don’t forget that a book is a great gift idea, especially for…
My 1st edition Frommer’s Honduras has been released, conveniently about the same time as the former tourism minister of the country says not to travel there. FYI: Most of Honduras is still relatively safe to travel in, particularly the Bay Islands. Great deals are being had for divers now if you…
Rubber trees grow wild in the Amazon rainforest and at the beginning of the automobile industry the world’s rubber trade was completely reliant on the Amazon jungle. Rubber tappers, mostly indigenous families who were widely exploited, gathered rubber from vast reserves near large Amazonian cities such as Iquitos, Manaus, and…
The Greatest List of Books, Films, Music, and TV Shows about Peru ever compiled.…
I’ve been on an Amazon kick lately, partly because I’m headed in the region briefly next week, but also because I have long been fascinated by Amazon exploration. New York based David Grann, a not too adventurous writerly type, goes to Brazil in search of the remains of the legendary…
John Hemming, the historian who penned Conquest of the Incas, one of the definitive texts on the arrival of the Spanish in Peru and South America and the battles that followed, has released this gem of a book that covers the breadth of Amazon history. …
