Ecuador's Avenue of Volcanoes is where the Andes reveal their wildest secrets
Getting there: LATAM flies direct from Sydney or Melbourne to Santiago, Chile eight times a week, with connections on to Quito via Lima, Peru or Guayaquil in Ecuador. Flights are priced from around $2550 return.
Touring there: Contours Travel is Australia's longest-running Latin American travel specialist, and celebrates 50 years during 2025. A similar itinerary to the writer's is about $10,500 per person twin share, including accommodation, daily breakfast and many other meals, overland transport, private touring with English-speaking guides and 24-hour emergency assistance.
Explore more: contourstravel.com.au; ecuador.travel
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West Australian
13 hours ago
- West Australian
On the stepping stone between home and away
I've flown on a lot of airlines recently, but flying to India and back with Singapore Airlines has been a reset. The speed, charm and professionalism with which the faultless cabin crew look after the cabin has always been a benchmark. In their elegant uniforms, they think and act fast. It's brilliant. On the first leg of the four flights, I learnt a lesson. The company that had booked the flights for me sent me the details and I went to 'manage my booking' online and chose seats for each leg, and logged my preference for the Asian vegetarian meal — which, for my taste, is the best meal on an economy ticket anywhere. The booking company changed the outbound flights by a day. When I checked in for the flights, I found seats weren't allocated, and there were only middle seats left. So this is just a warning to others that if you change your flights, check you don't lose your preferences (as I stupidly did). Middle seats? A third of the passengers have to sit in the middle, so why not me? On the first leg of the four flights, I found myself in the middle of a party of 100 students from Japan going home from a school trip. They were all dressed in uniform (white shirts, ties and blue jackets for the boys, blue skirts for the girls). And there was me, in row 66, in the middle of this sea of them. And what a refreshing experience. What a polite, well-organised, sensitive and well-supervised group. Those sitting next to me didn't speak English, but we exchanged polite greetings through the translation app on our phones. + The nice thing about the Singapore Airlines flight is that I'm not the only one wearing a mask. Yes, I'm still wearing a mask in planes. + Just a little tip: the earphones on the first flight can, of course, be used on the following flights. So I roll mine up, slip them back in their little resealable bag, and take them with me. I do like the electric buggies in Singapore's Changi Airport which carry the less mobile to their gates. They have a flashing light on top, play a cheery tune and (rather than a beeping horn), and have a recording of someone politely saying: 'Excuse me. (Pause) Thank you.' Others (with different, jaunty music) announce: 'Vehicle approaching. Please give way.' It's midnight at Changi and the shops are shutting. Travellers are looking for places to perch. The place is slowing down. And I settle down, too, on a seat opposite Chow Tai Fook and Victoria's Secret, to wait for my flight, which boards at 1.35am. I am in transit, and that gives me time to think . . . . . . I'm in transit, in every sense. Physically, I'm just at the waypoint, waiting for a flight. I'm precariously on the one stepping stone between home and away. I have my passport and boarding pass close to hand. But I'm in transit internally, too. Emotionally. Spiritually. I'm on the way to India, to a place known, and (unusually for my journeys to India) I do not have a group of readers with me. I am not responsible for anyone or anything except myself, my wellbeing, and the stories I will write for you. I will write 2000 words a day. I will file and caption every picture I take, every day. I will be awake, seeking, absorbing, processing, reacting and writing for 18 hours a day. And that feels, frankly, gorgeous and self-indulgent. All I ever wanted to do was to be a writer and work hard. And here I am, heading for a place that's comfortable for me, doing it. But for now, I'm in transit. In transit: the action of passing through or across a place. The passage of a celestial body, in astronomy and astrology (both of which are alive and busy in everyday life in modern India). Perhaps we are one person at home and a slightly different person when we are away. That is one of the attractions of travel. We are cut loose and liberated. We are freed. We miss home and family (we long for home and family), but we are footloose and there's a lightness to that if we just embrace it. My carry-on bag is heavier than when I left home. I believe in the serendipity of airport bookshops, which leads me to WHSmith at Perth Airport. And there on the shelf is William Dalrymple's latest, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed The World, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. It is, I know, the book for this trip. I had an unpleasant experience with Mr Dalrymple and Perth's writers festival some years back, and haven't read his books since. So it's a big moment when I tap my phone and pay the $39.99 for his book. I have moved on. I am the better off for it (and so, in this case, is Mr Dalrymple). (A reminder of the advice once given to me that the only thing left after they cremate a human body is the grudges.) PS The book is excellent and I do recommend it to readers interested in India, and how it has very much had a hand in shaping today's world. I read The Times Of India online several times every week (as I do French, German, British and other online newspapers). A lot of stories are insightful from a different perspective, which I find healthy and refreshing. Some stories show the pattern of the world in a different way ('Russia says India to get remaining S-400 systems by 2026'). I am engaged by its local news (''Wait, is my matar paneer safe?' Inside the Indian cottage cheese controversy'). I remain rather enchanted by some of its quirks. It has a whole astrology section ('The most loyal zodiac signs: who stands by you no matter what'). And so, as you see, with time to pause comes time to reflect, absorb and expand. And that is one of the treats of travel.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Four biennials to see this northern European summer
The 'biennale' was established in Venice, Italy in the early 1900s. La Serenissima's version is still the most famous, but the biennale (or biennial in English) concept has taken hold internationally in more recent times. Hundreds of these two-yearly contemporary art festivals are now staged in cities from Reykjavik to Sydney. You don't need to be into art and design to find something enriching in these often free events. Biennials might be mostly about visual creativity, but they also offer a sticky beak into some of their city's intriguing spaces. This northern summer sees iterations of four major biennials that prove the point. The 13th Berlin Biennale starts June 14 and runs until September 14, showing new and established artists. The London Design Biennial runs throughout June. In the biennale home, Venice Biennale Architettura 2025 is on and running until the end of November, exploring the world of architecture. In the north of England, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art touted as Britain's largest of its kind, has just started and runs until the end of September. Many exhibits take over unique and otherwise publicly inaccessible spaces, or even just places you may not have considered putting on a sightseeing itinerary. The London Design Biennale, for instance, is in Somerset House, a conglomeration of historic government buildings in the heart of the city on the Strand, given over to public use and art since the year 2000. The Berlin Biennale is spread across four venues chosen for their stories. Alongside the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (founded in a derelict margarine factory in 1991), venues include Sophiensaele, an independent theatre established in the early 1900s Craftsmen's Association building, once a meeting place for revolutionaries, and Hamburger Bahnhof, a railway terminus turned into a major contemporary art gallery. The Biennale is also debuting a former 1900s courthouse on Lehrter Strasse as a new art space.
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
Four biennials to see this northern European summer
The 'biennale' was established in Venice, Italy in the early 1900s. La Serenissima's version is still the most famous, but the biennale (or biennial in English) concept has taken hold internationally in more recent times. Hundreds of these two-yearly contemporary art festivals are now staged in cities from Reykjavik to Sydney. You don't need to be into art and design to find something enriching in these often free events. Biennials might be mostly about visual creativity, but they also offer a sticky beak into some of their city's intriguing spaces. This northern summer sees iterations of four major biennials that prove the point. The 13th Berlin Biennale starts June 14 and runs until September 14, showing new and established artists. The London Design Biennial runs throughout June. In the biennale home, Venice Biennale Architettura 2025 is on and running until the end of November, exploring the world of architecture. In the north of England, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art touted as Britain's largest of its kind, has just started and runs until the end of September. Many exhibits take over unique and otherwise publicly inaccessible spaces, or even just places you may not have considered putting on a sightseeing itinerary. The London Design Biennale, for instance, is in Somerset House, a conglomeration of historic government buildings in the heart of the city on the Strand, given over to public use and art since the year 2000. The Berlin Biennale is spread across four venues chosen for their stories. Alongside the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (founded in a derelict margarine factory in 1991), venues include Sophiensaele, an independent theatre established in the early 1900s Craftsmen's Association building, once a meeting place for revolutionaries, and Hamburger Bahnhof, a railway terminus turned into a major contemporary art gallery. The Biennale is also debuting a former 1900s courthouse on Lehrter Strasse as a new art space.
