The Patagonia Giant Bumblebee
I heard about it long before we went to Patagonia…”The flying mouse” is what is has been called because it is so large and the orange/red coloration and fuzziness makes it look like a cute, little rodent. The large size is attributed to the…
Fin Del Mundo (The end of the earth)
The sun burned on and on, late into the evening, which is an odd feeling in February for someone from the Northern Hemisphere; but the strangest thing was not the absurd length of the day, but thinking about WHERE we were. We were in…
The Yareta Plant: The Remarkable Green Jewel of the desert
Deep within the high-altitude regions of Bolivia and parts of northern Chile, thrives a strange botanical specimen known as the yareta (Azorella compacta). This extraordinary plant is sometimes called “moss lettuce” or “stone lettuce,” and even called a living boulder or green slime by…
The World’s Mirror: Salar de Uyuni
An immense salt-flat stretches to the horizon like nature’s most enigmatic mirror. Here, a seamless expanse of crystalline salt reflects the sky’s ever-changing colors, creating a mesmerizing illusion of the sky and ground becoming one. This otherworldly landscape, with its intricate patterns up close…
Patagonia- The Ultimate Wild
The wind whipped across the barren grassland, sending sprays of milky blue water 50+ feet into the matching sky. Clouds scraped across the top of the mountains like fluffy white rocks being skipped on a lake. One of the most breathtaking scenes in one…
Atacama: A Symphony of Extremes
It was early morning, and the sun would soon be beating down relentlessly, its piercing stare never softened even from a passing cloud. But before it gained strength, since this place was high altitude, we were actually quite cold. At night, temperatures dropped to…
Now Vertakking Abroad Series: The Radical Sabbatical
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming of Tiny House living, ecological restoration and minimization to bring you a special group of posts regarding taking these concepts abroad to other countries! We are taking a sabattical right now across the amazing continent of South America….