The novelty of cycle touring has been wearing on me for quite some time. The daily packing and movement to a new location has lost its luster. Our bikes, unfit for gravel surfaces due to the composition of my bike frame, our tires, oh, and our dog, force us to stick to the main roads[...]
I am a chocolate snob. Anything under 60% is just not chocolatey enough and between 70% and 85% is ideal. And don’t even thinking about tainting chocolate with milk. That’s just repulsive. Throughout much of South America, I’ve had a bit of a tough time finding high quality, vegan[...]
On January 24th, Sora turned 12 years old. Twelve. With her young pup spunk, high energy level, and joie de vivre, you’d have us fooled. It’s a made up birthday, since Dave adopted her when she was three years old, with little known about her background, but that doesn’t matter. To[...]
I am not typically one for visiting mega tourist destinations. The crowds, lines, and all the tourist traps, make me want to bolt as soon as we’ve arrived. It took some convincing from several friends to make me agree to visit Machu Picchu. Don’t get me wrong, I found Machu Picchu[...]
When planning my family visit to Ecuador this Christmas, I asked my trusty college roommate for advice. She had studied abroad there during our last semester of college and her program took her all over the country. “Mindo,” she said. “Don’t miss Mindo.” But we missed Mindo. One of the[...]
Not usually a large city fan, especially large polluted Latin American cities, Quito won me over. We had a few friends we already knew in the city, as well as some friends who had lived there previously. We were seeking access to nature and dog-friendly places to walk and run with Sora. [...]
I came across the Go Pet Friendly Pet Blogger Challenge a few weeks ago and thought it would be fun to participate. This post shares our blog highlights from 2016, outlines our goals for 2017, and gives a bit more background information that will hopefully be interesting to both[...]
The vista from the viewpoint wasn’t particularly impressive. The grey clouds hovered over the hills that encircled us at 4,000 meters, casting a dreary mood over the land. I however, could watch the wisps of clouds dance across the bellies of the mountains, like the slow exhale of a[...]
Finding dog-friendly jaunts in nature that also include transportation is not always easy, but I emailed a few tour companies to see what they might be able to offer. Arutam Ecotours, emailed me right away and suggested the hike to the Waterfalls of Girón (also called El Chorro)[...]
If you haven’t read Part I, you should. As the wind gathered more force and the hail intensified, Jesse and I ambled on in meditative silence. The storm wasn’t so miserable. It wasn’t raining, so we weren’t wet, and it wasn’t all that cold. Nevertheless, we wanted to reunite with[...]
Dave is a bit of a weather worrier. He frequently checks the forecast and frets about supposed incoming rain or wind or heat. Then he tells me about the weather, shoving his phone in my face to prove the disaster on the horizon. I typically glance over and say, “hmmm.” Actually[...]
I’ll admit this right off the bat. You cannot visit Machu Picchu with a dog. You can get close, but you can’t actually take your dog inside the sacred site. We had hemmed and hawed about whether or not to visit Machu Picchu, knowing it would be difficult, but everyone told us we had to[...]
Our friend Flavia, whom we met early on in our travels at a Casa de Ciclistas in Patagonia, wanted to enlist our help in adopting a puppy with whom she had fallen in love a month prior in the small mountain village of Hanchipata. Suggesting a bike ‘n hike trip to dog-friendly[...]
Before heading to Bolivia, we put together fake documents to please the border patrol who would be issuing our visas. They like to see a place of residence, departure flight, and several other bits of information. As cycle tourists, we never know where we’ll be when, so we just found a[...]
Due to our own indirection and mistakes, we had a bit of a difficult time finding dog-friendly B3 Backpacker Hostel in Iquique, Chile. Fortunately, we found ourselves in the delightfully warm-weather-pocket of northern Chile that reminded us of San Diego, so getting lost wasn’t all[...]
Our original plan was to spend a month on the Chilean coast, two hours north of Santiago and care for four dogs, before heading onto San Pedro de Atacama, and then the Laguna Route in Bolivia. A fellow cyclist whom we had met on the road, however, had an accident on his bike resulting in[...]
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