Author Archives

Traveler, seeker, environmental scientist, father of three, tree hugger, thrill seeker, simple pleasure fiend, music lover...

• The Details are Written on Leaves

  By Dave Santillo on July 3, 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  I’m one of those who searches for depth in my relationship to nature.  I avoid “attractions” that draw crowds, I often seek meaning for my interactions, and I strive to understand the how’s and why’s of what I see. I… Read More ›

• Me and My Sparrow – Birds & Saltmarshes Behind Off-limits Signs on Monomoy Island, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

  By Dave Santillo on June 25, 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  Me and my sparrow Taking the high road Where ever we go, everyone knows, It’s me and my sparrow (*) _________________________________________________________________________________ (*) With deference to the late great Harry Nilsson, and his song “Me and My Arrow” The boat drops us… Read More ›

• The Market “Crash” in the Beach Village of Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

  By Dave Santillo on March 18, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  The last days of a 4-month long, 4-country travel stint in Latin America winding down, I got off the bus last week with my son and his girlfriend in the small community of Puerto Lopez, Ecuador, a village of 16,000… Read More ›

• A Quest for “Nature” in Uruguay

  By Dave Santillo on February 27, 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  Noone I knew had visited Uruguay, and few had heard anything about it. I’d read that it’s a peaceful country with a democratically-elected president who is a former freedom-fighter from the 1970’s when Uruguay was ruled by a military junta. … Read More ›

• The Wondrous Glacier Perito Moreno, Argentina, Has a Chip on its Shoulder

  By Dave Santillo on February 23, 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  They say that nature talks, but humans rarely listen. After a day of trekking on Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier, in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, in southern Patagonia, I sat down on a boulder on the land to the side of… Read More ›

• Colonia Carlos Pelligrini, Argentina, Reinvents Itself as a Model for Sustainability Based on Ecotourism

  By Dave Santillo on February 18, 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  In a world reeling from the bad news of one environmental disaster and natural resource pillage after another, Argentina’s Esteros del Ibera Wetlands National Park stands out as a heartening example of the resiliency of ecological communities.  It’s a story… Read More ›

• Hiking a Year in One Day on Volcano Baru, Panama – A Father & Son New Years

  By Dave Santillo on January 1, 2013 • ( 1 )

  

  It’s become part of our culture to greet the arrival of a new year by reflecting on what’s going on in our lives.   If we’re in the right frame of mind – highly questionable given the insanity of what passes… Read More ›

• The Old Man and the Pan – A Soggy Story from Cuenca, Ecuador

  By Dave Santillo on December 8, 2012 • ( 4 )

  

  A couple years back, I signed up for a Spanish Language course at one of the many schools in the beautiful City of Cuenca, Ecuador.   Cuenca is one of those mellow, stable, and lovely latin cities that Americans and others… Read More ›

• Rolling the Dice on the Rim of Nicaraugua’s Masaya Volcano

  By Dave Santillo on November 27, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  “The Volcano will give you about 15 seconds, no more.”  That’s how long the Park Ranger gave us to stand on the exposed rim of Nicaraugua’s Volcano Masaya to peak into the nighttime darkness at the glowing furnace in the… Read More ›

• Canoeing the Wild & Scenic Rio Grande River – A Wild West River Adventure

  By Dave Santillo on November 22, 2012 • ( 3 )

  

  Standing buck-naked in the Rio Grande River, a river-bend upstream of our overnight camp at Lower Falls in the Lower Canyons section of the river between Texas and Mexico, I braced against the current and started wringing the Dr. Bronners… Read More ›