If I was told to choose between mountains or beach, I don't know what I would do. In 2000, my brother, Paul, and I summited our first mountain - Sacagawea - in Montana's Bridgers. In 2001, I took my first dip in salt water. It was only the cold dark water of the Long Island sound, but for me the ocean was a whole new world of adventure. Since that time, I've swam in Hawaii's warm Pacific waters, the calm warm Gulf of Mexico near Destin, the cold tumult along California's Route 1 and various spots on the Atlantic up and down the east cost. Assateague, Duck, Sunset Beach, Belmar, Sandy Hook...the list goes on.

But I haven't neglected Mountains either. Sometimes to the chagrin of my knees, my little stubborn limbs have plodded up and down paths of every major mountain range except Asia's Himalayas. In the Colorado Rockies, it was actually my horse Bone's limbs that did the work, looping through valleys, along plateaus and up steep inclines. In Africa, my safari car labored over the Great Divide. (The power steering decided it was just too strenuous and gave out. My poor driver.) Paul and I rented bikes and cycled the mountain trails surrounding Lake Interlaken, in Switzerland. Earlier that week, we had been strolling through Huemoz, peering across the French Alps to Mount Blanc. Later, we hiked to the highest point you could go on the Matterhorn, before the climb became technical. I've scrabbled along a fair share of the Appalachian trail and sipped Chianti on a Tuscan hillside. Of course, I can't forget Yosemite, the Sierra Nevadas, or Rwanda's Virungas. Each place was beautiful in it's own way. But, in my mind, nothing compares to the Andes in Peru.

A friend turned thirty over Thanksgiving. Not one month after returning from Africa, I was on the plane again. This time, traveling to South America with 5 friends. I loved the Andes. (I also had the advantage of living in high elevation in Africa, so being at 13k feet didn't bother me at all. I'm afraid my friends didn't fair so well.) What can I tell you about the Andes? Their emerald peaks are both sharp and warm. Our troupe spent one day hiking the last part of the Inca trail and another wandering Machu Picchi. The spectacular vistas of the Inca trail are lined with history...storehouses without roofs, alters to sacrifice virgins, over 400 steps older than 500 year old. But these aren't just ancient artifices. The Incas were particularly attuned to constructing architecture in symmetry with their environment. In addition to being aesthetically placed, the location of each building had astrological import. Temples would be perfectly aligned with the rising and setting of the sun during the summer solstice or the winter equinox. I will never forget the beauty of Peru's Andes.