by cristinemp@comcast.net | Mar 20, 2016 | Musings, South America, Travel
Invisible By day, they are invisible, scattered about the city like stray dogs on the prowl, digging through yesterday’s trash, begging outside of restaurants, or sleeping in the ragpiles of cardboard and debris. But as creatures of the night, they regroup,...
by cristinemp@comcast.net | Mar 20, 2016 | Musings, South America, Travel
Lying on Lima’s Southern edge, near Pachacamac ruins, a warren of squatter housing evolved into what is today portrayed as an “Oasis of Hope.” Villa el Salvador (VES) was founded in the early 1970’s by an initial wave of 10,000 migrants who either fled from the...
by cristinemp@comcast.net | Mar 20, 2016 | Musings, South America, Travel
Shantytowns and Squatters They abandon mountains or fields for an uncharted journey into a city that doesn’t want them. In post cards, they are the picturesque peasant farmer who gives character to the landscape; in the cities, they are the forgotten, left on...
by cristinemp@comcast.net | Feb 23, 2016 | South America
Latin American cities in general are patterned after traditional Spanish layouts, anchored by a primary central plaza linked to a series of smaller outlying plazas, all of which form the hub of residential and commercial life. The layout is about community and...
by cristinemp@comcast.net | Feb 23, 2016 | Musings, South America, Travel
One gasps upon flying into this city in a bowl. Lying at a sobering 11,942 feet in elevation (3,640 m), La Paz and its two million people are stuffed tightly into a canyon amidst the jagged Bolivian Andes. It is a city seemingly painted onto the valley floor,...
