I am thrilled to announce that Chilean-American author Isabel Allende has graciously agreed to co-host our 2017 Peru to Patagonia by Private Jet expedition, joining me and our expedition team for the entire trip, from the Amazon to the southern tip of Chile.
Travel and stories are two sides of the same coin. Books often inspire voyages to the places that captivate our imaginations, and the urge to tell our own tales of our a great trip is so strong that we often have a Facebook post up before our bags are unpacked.
So, who better to host our 2017 Peru to Patagonia by Private Jet than one of the greatest Latin American storytellers of today?
Ms. Allende, whose best-sellers include The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, and 20 other books, was born in Peru and raised in Chile, and her work, translated into 35 languages, has exposed readers worldwide to the magic of many of the places on our voyage.
If you’ve enjoyed reading Isabel Allende’s books, you’ll be interested to know that several places that we will visit together appear in her books: The House of the Spirits covers seventy years of Chile’s political and social history; Of Love and Shadows is set in Chile; the Amazon is the setting for City of the Beasts; Ines of My Soul is set in Peru, the Atacama Desert and Santiago; and Maya’s Notebook features the island of Chiloé, just to name a few.
Imagine the thrill of seeing Chile in the company of a writer who can evoke images like the following with just a few strokes of her pen (excerpt from My Invented Country):
“This elongated country is like an island, separated on the north from the rest of the continent by the Atacama Desert — the driest in the world, its inhabitants like to say, although that must not be true, because in springtime parts of that lunar rubble tend to be covered with a mantle of flowers, like a wondrous painting by Monet. To the east rises the cordillera of the Andes, a formidable mass of rock and eternal snows, and to the west the abrupt coastline of the Pacific Ocean. Below, to the south, lie the solitudes of Antarctica. This nation of dramatic topography and diverse climates, studded with capricious obstacles and shaken by the sighs of hundreds of volcanoes, a geological miracle between the heights of the cordillera and the depths of the sea, is unified top to tail by the obstinate sense of nationhood in its inhabitants.”
Isabel Allende’s observations, personal experiences, and expansive knowledge of South American history, politics, and culture will inform our travels together as we cruise Amazonian rivers in search of giant otters, toucans, macaws, and howler monkeys; take in sunsets in the multi-colored, sculptured desertscapes of one of the driest places on earth; work side-by-side blending wine with an Argentinian winemaker in Mendoza; track pumas in Patagonia surrounded by rocky, rugged peaks; and photograph colorful king penguins in Tierra del Fuego.
This private jet expedition will inspire your own stories for years to come, and I invite you to share it with us. But don’t delay making your reservation: space is limited to just 40 guests, and the trip departs March 4, 2017.