Souvenir stems from the French verb to remember, which is exactly what I do as I look around my office at items collected during my travels. For example, I bought the clay haniwa, a replica burial object of a dancing woman with an O-shaped mouth, in Miyazaki, Japan. Also gracing my office shelves are a small Acoma vase purchased from an indigenous woman in New Mexico, a marble head from Ecuador’s Easter Island, and a death mask from Mexico. So is it any surprise I was keen to shop for Colombian crafts on my recent visit to Bogotá?
Mochila bags on offer from one of the many street vendors in Bogota’s La Candelaria district
I wrote this article on shopping for Colombian crafts in Bogotá for gettingontravel.com. Unfortunately, that website has ceased publication, so I am also reprinting it here:
I was wandering around Mocagua, one of many Indigenous villages on Colombia’s Amazon River, when I spotted some teenage girls hanging out on the front porch of a home that sold drinks and snacks. I had already visited the village’s one-room museum with its historic artifacts, watched a family roasting…
In "Blogs linked to my articles published elsewhere"
The first time I saw a woman cooling herself with a Japanese folding fan, on a hot summer's day in Tokyo, I instantly knew I wanted one. Photos by Beth Reiber Over the years I’ve acquired a modest collection of Japanese folding fans, some of them purchased in souvenir shops,…
It seems like many Americans go to Mexico to party on its beaches, which is reason enough to head somewhere else. I'm drawn to Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, two colonial towns in central Mexico that are quite possibly the most beautiful in the country. They owe their wealth…
In "Latin America"
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