Scott Anthony Fujita, the American football linebacker famous for his role in the National Football League has retired in Peru. What interests us is the place where he chose to retire. From the mountaintops of Peruvian Andes, Scott Anthony Fujita announced his retirement from active career. The 33 year old is a Super Bowl-winning linebacker who spent 3 seasons in Kansas City, one in Dallas and 4 with the Saints. He won the 2009 NFL championship and survived allegations during a game and was absolved by former commissioner Paul Tagliabue. The place where he chose to retire was at an altitude of 10,000 feet above sea level, overlooking Machu Picchu. The football player was known for his charm on-field and off-field. He is a liberal who has vocally supported for [Continue reading...]

Can someone really understand climate change if it has no impact on his/her daily life? Our routines are all similar; head to the bathroom, brush our teeth, flush the toilet, take a shower, turn on our computers. We’ll head to the fridge and even keep the thing open for a good 5 minutes while we decide what we’ll have for breakfast. Those of us blessed to have a green patch of earth will water our lawns or watch the pool man do his job while we read the paper, all the while ignoring the really important articles on page 6. The stories that tell us that one day we’ll wake up, head to the bathroom and they’ll be no water for us to brush our teeth, no water to flush our excrement or to clean ourselves. Our computers lay idle because the hydro electric plant that produces our energy does not receive enough water to power its turbines. Of our picture perfect neighborhoods becoming dusty wastelands as desertification creeps in, claiming a generation of ignorance and leaving our children stranded in a mess we created. [Continue reading...]

The last film from writer/director duo Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth, Altiplano is an absolutely breath-taking visual experience with a tragic and all-too-real story at its core. Set high in an Andean Village in Peru, the plot follows the arcs of Grace, a war photographer devastated from her time in Iraq, and Saturina, a local woman fighting against the mines that have poisoned her people. Their lives intersect in heart-breaking and powerful ways. [Continue reading...]

Marcahuasi is the Quechua name given to a plateau 60 km northeast of Lima, one that roughly translates as “the House of the Sovereign”. Exactly who this sovereign is, or what the stories are behind the stone abodes and rock monuments that dot the landscape, most experts have little clue. Some have offered a geologic explanation for the sculpted landscape, while others, such as proto-historian Dr Daniel Ruzo, believe that the rocks, which resemble everything from faces to dinosaurs, are markers left by an ancient civilization, long since annihilated by cataclysms of (literally) Biblical proportions. [Continue reading...]

Huaraz and the surrounding area is full of rich culture and the sad past of a massive and destructive avalache causing earthquake which destroyed the town of Ancash. The second day trip taken while staying at the Monte Blanco Hotel, 80 soles a night for a double, was to see the Pastoruri Glacier which has an altitude of 15 thousand feet. Although the deteriorating glacier is the pièce de résistance, my interest lied in the ride filled with the view of the Andes approaching and interesting plants with stories and medicinal uses. [Continue reading...]