Promise. We won’t start the song again…yet. When we landed in Istanbul we really did not know where to start despite repeated recommendations from family and friends. We had to find our travel mojo again, but there isn’t really a better place to find it than Constantinople. I mean Istanbul.
Searching for our mojo, we headed straight to the touristy neighborhood of Sultanhmet. While the swarms of cruise ship passengers aren’t exactly our modus operandi, incredible mosques, enormous bazaars and a palace with a rather long history are.
The Blue Mosque which (supposedly) is rivaled only by Mecca for its beauty in the Islamic world was as expected- incredible. I was shocked that I was allowed to …

Beloved all over former Czechoslovakia and Hungary dumplings are the national dish. Arriving in Prague, we were treated to a meal of strawberry dumplings by our couchsurfing hosts. Simple and easy to make, I helped our host in the kitchen, measuring ingredients on his grandfather’s old scale before filling them with fresh strawberries.
We normally think of berries as dessert or a side dish in the US, but in the former Austrian empire they are commonly used as filling for dinner dumplings. My first thought was that strawberry dumplings were something like strawberry shortcake. Wrong. Tasty, but light dough filled fruit balls, these dumplings were delicious, but not sweet like a dessert. Served with melted butter and salted cheese grated on …

Leaving Argentina was not easy.  We took a bus direct from San Juan to Santiago, a ride that should be about 8 hours, but the Chileans like to ensure their country is very safe from all manner of agricultural products.  For us, this translated to a 4 hour wait at the border, which was at 10,000 feet, with the a/c running on the bus.
Nevertheless we did manage to arrive in Santiago, albeit a good bit tardy.  Waiting for us at the station were our Santiago CS hosts, Dario and his wife Mariela.  I´d met Dario briefly back in Washington about a year ago and as we’ve traveled through South America we´d kept in contact.  Despite only having met for 15 …

I first heard of Mate traveling in Guatemala on my semester abroad from college. I didn’t try it but I did remember it and when I saw it again, and had the opportunity again, chose not to try it again. I figured that since I was going to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile I should wait to try it in one of those countries.
Mate itself is basically a type of herbal tea (sort of looks  like oregano or crushed tea leaves) that is very popular down here. Rather than filling a coffee mug with water and dropping in a small filter bag with tea leaves inside, with Mate the cup itself is special. No ordinary mug will …