Samai Haider

The pandemic brought travel to a halt. With flights grounded, restaurants shuttered, and popular tourist sites morphed into ghost towns,

No self-respecting tourist will come away from Rio without having visited Christ the Redeemer, the statue that is emblematic of Rio.

Rio is a city of varying extremes, encapsulated in wild rainforests and beaches; a metropolis of skyscrapers and shantytowns; a cosmopolitan steeped in history. I explore its many aspects through a series of articles on the city. This is the second of three.

Rio is unlike any city I'd been in before: not just geographically, where the urban sprawl gives way to fine, sandy beaches and rainforest covered hills with sheer drop down to stunning lagoons, but also culturally as it exudes a vibrant yet laid-back vibe.

Ciudad del Este, Paraguay's second largest city, is famous. But perhaps not for the more conventional reasons. Set on the tri-border with Brazil's Foz do Iguaçu and Argentina's

Looking down, I saw what resembled a mossy carpet, its tight weave separated only by the muddy Paraná River, snaking its way through the vast stretch of jungle.

What we'd thought would be a breezy two-hour bus ride from the coastal town of Colonia del Sacramento to the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo, quickly turned into a four-hour affair.

The ferry, a much smaller vessel than I'd expected, bobbed up and down as it cut across the Rio del Plata. We were en route to Colonia del Sacramento—a quaint coastal town in Uruguay.

The barrios of Buenos Aires has been split into three parts: Monserrat & City Centre, Palermo & Recoleta, and La Boca & San Telmo. This is the third instalment in the series.

I had originally tried my hand at learning to speak French but failed spectacularly. So, I turned to Spanish, a seemingly more manageable language, where I could, at least, pronounce the words I was reading.

My eyes fell on a tiny speck on the world map spread out before me. Easter Island. One of the most remote inhabited islands in the world.

As our taxi wound its way down the wide avenues of Santiago, our driver, despite his rudimentary English, regaled us with his vacation stories.

One of the things that struck me most about Chile is their love for dogs. If they hadn't already adopted a canine family member, then they are out on the streets showering their affections on the roadside strays. Bowls of doggie treats and water are left out on street corners and in front of shops; parks host kennel colonies

It was perhaps Jane Austen that first introduced me to the therapeutic benefits of bathing in thermal waters—a concept which my teenaged self found archaic and strange. As I grew older (and travelled wider), I realised bathing in hot springs is fairly common the world over. The instant I stepped into my first hot spring, I understood why. The almost unbearably warm waters cocooned my body and I felt my muscles unwind. I closed my eyes. It was sublime.

It was only last month that I found myself in La Fuente Alemana on a busy street in Providencia in Santiago, Chile.

"This is madness!” I thought to myself as I frantically tried to stuff a jacket into my backpack, already bursting at the seams.

Neat rows of red-brick buildings, bathed in brilliant sunlight, stretched out under an azure sky. The carefully manicured grounds, and the forest beyond, were a lush green. One could be forgiven for mistaking it for a well-run summer camp. It certainly did not look anything like what had been portrayed in Schindler's List or the myriad of Holocaust literature. Even the wrought-iron sign above the gates reading