The closing of 2018 completes our second full year of blogging about South America. We are placing the map of South America at the header because in our experience with people in North America many do not know their geography, the basics of what country lies where in the Southern Hemisphere. Part of our intent of running this blog is to educate people about South America. It helps to know where the countries are to better understand the information we are providing on our posts.

During the year 2018 we had five trips to Peru and one trip to Ecuador. We greatly expanded the dissemination of South American photography through the twitter account @JamesMWise, using hash tags #JamesMWise, #Andes, #travel, #Peru, #Chile, #Bolivia, #Argentina, #Colombia, etc. Traffic sourced from twitter to the webpage southamericatotheworld.com accounted about ten percent of the page views. The website managed to double the amount of visits for the year as compared to what we logged in 2017. For us this is an important benchmark because we reached our goal doubling the traffic while cutting the number of posts in half from the year 2017. This was necessary because both the geology posts and shared recipes require more effort by doing research.

We completed 12 monthly door pictures from different countries. Writing about historic doors from different South American countries each month broadened the descriptions from what we had in our book “Doors of South America.” The new text generated through this effort is slated for translation to be used down the road in a Spanish published version of this book. While our photography book features a solid 300 photographs of interesting doors, we have another 100 door pictures that have not been shared yet and this will make for a new updated edition of the best doors of South America.

A total of 18 South American recipes were prepared at home, and then written up to be shared. Many of these dishes required making them several times to get them to turn out the right way. Recipes we tried this year were spread across the different South American countries.

Yanira researched and prepared:

• Cazuela de vacuno,

• Pollo a la cerveza with rice cooked in coconut milk a Colombian recipe,

• Picada y Provoleta Uruguaya – Cheese board Uruguayan style and Provoleta,

• Llapingachos from Ecuador a traditional stuffed potato,

• Pao de Queijo –Pan de queso or Cheese bread rolls from Brazil,

• Father’s day dessert Don Pedro from Argentina,

• Matambre a la pizza Margherita Style an Argentinian recipe,

• Lomo Saltado and light lucuma ice cream dessert Peruvian recipes,

• Peruvian arroz con pollo or chicken with rice in cilantro sauce,

• Cazuela de frijoles Colombian style,

• James-Oliver Pisco Mule,

• Persian lime bites with Pisco lime syllabub,

• The History of Syllabub and Pisco Syllabub,

• Sabayon with Pisco a Christmas dessert,

• Traditional Eggnog and Algarrobina de Pisco,

• Cola de Mono a Chilean Christmas drink,

• Pisco Jello Shots for New Year’s Eve parties.

The emphasis on pisco drinks for the holidays at the end of this year is following upon Yani’s ebook 10 Pisco recipes. Our favorite recipe this year was Cazuela de frijoles from Colombia. Trying a wide variety of South American recipes was so enjoyable that we are continuing this practice for each month during 2019.

In 2018 we presented six geological posts about the Andes. James’s geology posts covered a breadth of Andean topics, including:

• The Quechua geological monster,

• Deformation in the Cordillera de la Sal and surrounding the Salar de Atacama – Chile,

• Remarkable folded dacitic dikes at Mina Ragra – Peru,

• Timing of the Quechua 1 contrational event in Central Peru, base metal veins of Peruvian Andes,

• Andean deformation and uplift: a comparison between geological and geochronological constraints with fission-track exhumation method.

Many of these summaries treat concepts not covered in other published literature, and ideas that other geologists have not thought about or have been aware existed. Both posts “Quechua geological monster” and “Quechua 1” builds from knowledge developed during and since completing a Ph.D. on this topic form the Ayacucho intermontane basin; these posts include concepts and data that was not in the dissertation. Similarly, the current geology post being worked on for March of 2019 is called “MAJOR INFLECTIONS AND EROSION TRANSITIONS IN THE CANYONS OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES” and is a topic with twenty years of consideration and observation. Posting these geological summaries on our blog provides ownership of the topic, and bypasses rather finicky gate-keeping old-boys club found in journal publications. These concepts were dealt with passion for the Andes that goes beyond mere academic posturing. These posts are about the nature of being for the Andes- abstracting its essence because so much remains unsaid and unstudied. The ideas being covered have matured beyond the duration of a typical university study and come from a broad cross-discipline perspective of the Andes while university research projects being done today are very narrow in scope or topic. Studying the Andes is just not about having some knowledge of what has been described, but knowing what questions remain unanswered.

In addition, we shared a variety of posts on different topics summarized here:

• 10 Best hot springs of South America,

• 6,000 meters and above in the Andes,

• El Muki,

• Lima 100,

• Photographing Machu Picchu,

• Waters of Bahia Inglesa-Chile,

• The Extreme Hot Springs of the Andes,

• Lava is not terrifying and the weather is not raging,

• National Parks in South America and hot springs,

• Peruvian hairless dogs,

• Living in a Pie-less country,

• South America Plaza de Armas.

The themes of Peru, mountains, and hot springs should be obvious. Our expertise is certainly Peruvian, including having family in the country; nonetheless having visited some countries in this continent, our goal is to keep sharing our experiences and to continue learning about the rest of South America. After all as we always say we continue Exploring South America’s inexhaustible creative force.

The upcoming year-

Looking forward to 2019, we are launching a new monthly topic for the year, a book review of South American authors or books about South America. We have selected the titles for the year and encourage anyone to read these and make comments on our summary reviews. The books in consideration are as follows:

January- “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

February- “Touching the Void” by Joe Simpson

March- “Open Veins of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano

April- “Travels in a Thin Country” by Sara Wheeler

May- “Patagonian Road” by Kate McCahill

June- “Turn Right at Machu Picchu” by Mark Adams

July- “The Last Days Of The Incas” by Kim MacQuarrie

All these books are available on Amazon.com

 

In 2019 we will continue sharing at least one recipe a month from different countries, having many exciting things to try. Our local Latino market in Denver has started stocking key ingredients imported from Peru, giving us the option to prepare dishes that we could not make before, such as the Criolla dinner of Carapulcra and a dish containing olluco. Furthermore, April is the World day of Malbec wine; we are currently doing Mendoza wine reviews in preparation for a special post. Stay tuned for this wine lovers post. During 2018 we managed to purchase a suite of Bolivian minerals, researched these locations, and photographed the minerals for a post on this topic to be released early in 2019. We continue to slowly add to our mineral collection, and are active in finding nice samples from all South American countries. We have posts planned out for the next four months, placing us the most advanced preparation yet during the last two years of blogging. We continue to be energized and enthusiastic about exploring and sharing many topics that define the character of South America, particularly through photography, cooking, geology, mineralogy, dining, and travel. Our focus remains on original content that is not found on other websites or in any of the mainstream travel guidebooks- bringing creative force to South America’s inexhaustible distinct culture.

James is improving his Photography hobby and bringing it up to a professional level. This 2018 he published four new photography books adding them to his “100 Series” with titles as follows:

• Lima 100 released on February 2018

• Seattle 100 released on February 2018

• Denver 100 released on May 2018

• Vancouver 100 released on September 2018

James continues his passion for photography, and new titles will be added this coming year- stay tuned for that. It is going to be spectacular. For more on his photography collection visit www.jamesmwise.com

Once again this 2018 we have been busy. We continue to love what we do, and share it with all our readers of southamericatotheworld.com thanks for spending the time to read our posts and we hope you continue doing so this coming year.

Best wishes for all and Happy New Year!

Jim and Yani.

 

Do connect with us:

ResearchGate: James M. Wise 

Author´s page: James M. Wise

Photography page: JamesM.Wise.com 

Author´s page: Yanira K. Wise

 

 

South America seems to refuse to show its inexhaustible creative force.