Earlier this month, Peruvian president Ollanta Humala announced plans for Peru to open a new airport with closer access to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. This $US 460 million dollar project, reported on by BBC News, aims to drastically improve international access to Peru’s most visited tourist attraction as well as create more jobs for the surrounding community. The closest airport in Cusco is generally too small to accommodate large planes or a high volume of daily flights, and the planned airport in Chinchero, a town about 20 minutes outside of Cusco, aims to improve on these limitations. The project’s first step will be to begin expropriating large lots of land around Chinchero.
At Global Basecamps, we don’t blink when we call ourselves travel specialists; we are well-traveled all around the world, and consider ourselves real experts on our featured destinations. But our commitment to extreme local knowledge and unparalleled customer service keeps our “Featured Destination” list at a manageable fifteen countries, until now. Global Basecamps has spent years planning successful, cultural, exciting and unique trips to Argentina.
The news broke a few weeks ago, but it will always be relevant. Lonesome George, the world’s last Pinto Island Tortoise and a recognized symbol of the Galapagos, died on June 24th, 2012. If you have ever been to the Galapagos Islands, there is a good chance you saw him. Discovered in 1971, he grew slower and more lackadaisical as the years came and went, but he was still a wonder. The last of his species, he was a living reminder of the dangers that accompany a human presence.
We’d like to take this week to acknowledge the species of the Galapagos that are still in critical danger of extinction. According to the Galapagos Conservancy, we know of thirteen vertebrate species that are now extinct, and of those, humans have witnessed seven of them cross the threshold into non-existence.
Chile’s Atacama Desert is home to salt flats, snowy peaks, unique desert culture, hot springs, and even a few luxury resorts, but if you didn’t stay at this particular luxury resort during your last visit here, you didn’t do it right. This week we’d like to feature one of our favorite hotel properties in the world, Awasi. Hidden away in one of the most secluded corners on the planet, you wouldn’t expect to find world-class gourmet food, perfectly personalized service, and jaw dropping accommodations, but lo and behold, it’s all there.
Documentaries come and go, and sometimes they are as easily forgettable as they are initially impactful, but we think Born to Be Wild, a film directed by David Lickley, deserves a little more attention. Nature documentaries have always been commercially and critically successful, and over the last few years the popularization of marching penguins, along with BBC-produced hi-def documentary series have certainly raised the bar for commercial success. High definition, 3-D and IMAX formats, along with the narrations of a man named Morgan Freeman are the new formula it seems.
