Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

       If you are going to visit the Valle de Cocora know that there are two ways to see this national park. The first is a trek through fairly undisturbed nature, which you can do either by horseback or on foot. If you choose horseback the ranchers will meet you as you enter the parking area and help you select the right horse for you off the open stalls that line the entrance. If you go on foot you will likely see more but know that horse feces will inevitably get into your shoe crevices. In either case, the area is about a day’s direct journey to the Nevados.      We arrived with the intention of riding a horse and our driver set to work negotiating an animal. The rate the ranchers quoted and would not budge from he judged too high and advised me not to take it. I never learned the rate but was not bound to either mode of transport. I decided to give up negotiating to start the journey and decided that better exploration could be done on foot anyw...

  It is perhaps futile to question commercializing nature as it seems the natural next step in our evolution as a species ever since our primitive ancestors mended the wilderness for survival. And yet, decades after learning that the fabled Old Man of the Mountain had long been held together by wiring before its collapse among other artistic licenses taken with nature, I still could not help but feel a bit dismayed with the Termales Santa Rosa de Cabal, hot water pools produced by the volcanos of Los Nevados rich in telluric and alkaline. It is perhaps futile to question commercializing nature as it seems the natural next step in our evolution as a species ever since our primitive ancestors mended the wilderness for survival. And yet, decades after learning that the fabled Old Man of the Mountain had long been held together by wiring before its collapse among other artistic licenses taken with nature, I still could not help but feel a bit dismayed with the Termales Santa Rosa de Ca...