photos

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urban

South America

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brick beauty & street art meet splendor

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glimpse: EXPENSIVE POVERTY | What a sinister paradox: if you belong to the 35 % of Limeños, who live in the many shanty towns of Peru’s capital, you pay up to 10 times more for water than wealthier residents, according to Oxfam estimates. Abundant water, filling the pools of affluent Miraflores, is a scarce commodity in next door San Juan de Miraflores, where squatter settlements crawl up muddy hills. Without plumbing they depend on costly water truck deliveries, which don’t make it up the slopes. This means additional labor and costs for those living higher up. Despite an infamous perpetual winter drizzle, it almost never rains in Lima, which undermines rainwater harvesting efforts. And as though that wasn't bitterly ironic enough, the occasional rain comes down as torrential downpours, washing out these very hills and demolishing the brittle existences of those who dwell here.

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glimpse: DEATH BIRTHING LIFE | The day had us walled in with grey when we stepped through the gate of La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. Here, in the pulsating heart of Argentina's capital, the realm of death is a proper city with paved alleys and mausoleums the size of small houses. An impermeable mist flooded the maze unwinding between hundreds upon hundreds of tombs and the day's perpetually drizzling grayness now bestowed an eerie atmosphere on the place, just as is expected from a stroll among the dead. That's when a little green dot called my eye and drew me to a white marble tomb. A plant sprung out of the cross-shaped opening, behind which the proprietor perished, to start over the cycle of life once more.

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Escadaria Selarón, Rio de Janeiro / Brazil   colorful artwork with tiles by Chilean artist Selarón

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Medellin / Colombia   bricks crawling up the hills

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Medellin / Colombia   contemporary architecture

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Valparaíso / Chile   sheet metal facades - originally the sheet metal was used to secure freight in cargo ships arriving from Europe and what was practical then, looks artful now

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gallery

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related

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photos | essays

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The Street Next Door

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stumbling upon the grandeur of normality in everyday streets 

...the grandeur of the streets compiled herein lies in their utter normality... these streets are the subtle voice of the mundane; they are the streets next door... see more

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countries | South America | Chile

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Valparaíso / TV, Tsunami, Neruda & the Quintessence of Hills & Timing

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a matter of perspective and timing

...still, there was no denying that this little TV set now beamed some baffling information at us: an 8.2 earthquake off the Chilean Pacific coast was sending a Tsunami right our way and suddenly we appreciated every meter our journey had led us up the raven hill... explore

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countries | South America | Brazil

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Rio de Janeiro / No Hard Feelings

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distinguishing between place and experience

...my harshest criticism towards many travelers and especially the ones armed with blogs – that they don’t distinguish between a place and their experience there... explore

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countries | South America | Chile

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Santiago de Chile / Outside the Fence with a Whisky Flask

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the morals of sneaking in and getting what you pay for

...naturally, Kant's principals are noble, intact, and upright, while mine dangled lazily between mischievous and preposterous. But, from a pragmatic point of view no harm was done and this factual utilitarian reality was more convenient for me that day... explore

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others

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more urban

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