Latin America and Caribbean

Fifteen Geoparks. Around forty days. Over 15,000 kilometers. The journey begins in Mexico’s dry light and ends in Chile’s cold forests. In between, I fly, I drive long open roads, winding through shifting landscapes. Everywhere, geology rises to the surface. I touch stone carved by unknown ancestors. I drink aguamiel drawn at dawn from the heart of an agave. I drift through a canyon where water whispers between basalt walls. I walk the rim of a crater, follow jaguar tracks in the jungle, watch a weaver spin color into meaning. In Peru, children run between terraces older than empires. In Brazil, fossils emerge from the rock, zebu cattle graze under a still sky, and titanosaur statues watch over town squares. In Uruguay, a man offers me hot maté without a word. I drink. The bitterness stays in my mouth. Then comes the south. Sacred trees. A restless volcano. A Mapuche man stops beside an ancient Araucaria. He places his hand gently on a low branch. “Better to listen,” he says. I say nothing. The wind rises through the needles. And for a moment, everything slows.