San Pedro de Atacama

Like a whirlwind my time in Chile is coming to an end and I realize that I have not been keeping up with my postings - shame on me! I am actually flying back to the US today, but fearing that things will get even more chaotic once I get there I have decided to at least post a few pictures.

This first set is from a weekend trip to "the driest place on earth" the Atacama desert, situated about 1,300KM north of Santiago. Atacama was on my "must visit" list for Chile and I was not disappointed -- it is for sure the most interesting place I have been to in Chile. Why? I guess because it is a kind of landscape I have never seen anywhere else - although truthfully it is not one landscape, but rather a series of amazingly diverse and unique landscapes all located within ~100KM of the little town of San Pedro. I would have liked to have spent 4-5 days here in order to see them all, but alas this is a working stay! But we did get to see quite a few and below are some of the highlights:

The church in San Pedro, notice the detached bell tower something they used to do in this region to respect local customs of female/masculine deities.

Salar de Atacama -- a lagoon in the middle of a salt field.

Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley)

Valle de la Luna Sunset.

Atacama Cacti.

Team Endeavor at a local San Pedro hot spot - they had a huge open fireplace so for once it was actually hot -- this is at the end of the day that we began at 6AM, minus 12 Celcius, at 4,300 meters in order to see a geyser field at its sunrise best.

Entering Valle de Marte or Muerte...

Beautiful views everywhere

Local friends: Llamas!

Leaving the valley on Sunday night we had one of the most beautiful sunsets i have ever seen - unfortunately taking pictures out of the window of a moving bus doesn't really work that well.

Elqui Valley & La Serena

Monday the 16th was another public holiday in Chile, meaning time for another trip! This time a road trip about 500KM north of Santiago to the coastal town of La Serena and to the Elqui Valley, known for its "spiritual energies", observatories and hippies! The latter in particular won my heart over, because it reminded my of all the crazy, happy people back in Berkeley and because it was everything that grey-clad Santiago is not. Elqui Valley, and in particular its little main town Pisco Elqui are now officially my favorite places in Chile :)

Entering Elqui Valley

Tololo Observatory

Gema, Carlos and our gem of a miniature rental car

View from Tololo

The Elqui Valley is famous for its very dark and clear skies and is thus home to several international observatories. These are only open for visits during the day, as they are used for research at night, nonetheless we decided to tour one of them, Tololo, and the tour was well worth it for the beautiful views provided from the top of the mountain that the observatory is located on. At night we did visit the small Mammalluca observatory that has been built especially for tourist visitors, so we did get the chance to enjoy extraordinarily clear views of the milky way, the southern cross and even 4 of Jupiter's moons!


We spent a bit of time (unfortunately not enough!) hiking around the valley during the day as well, enjoying the views and the dry desert colors that just kept getting better as the day came to a close.

Sunset

First stars are coming out, if you find Venus in this picture you win a prize!

Finally, The Elqui Valley is also known as the home of Pisco (the spirit), so we did go on the obligatory tour of the Capel Pisco distillery and had the distinct pleasure of making friends with Ruperto, Capel's token pisco donkey... (more pictures of that may follow later).

Our Pisco Elqui Cabaña, night sky views from the deck included

The Valley, which in summer, during the wine growing season, is covered in green.

The mandatory flower shot - love those colors!

Ski Day!!

Sunday, two weeks ago, we (Carlos, Gema & I) set out to test the famous Chilean slopes, heading out for El Colorado, one of the resorts that are within 30 miles of Santiago for a day of snow and fun.


The weather was sub-optimal, very foggy and cloudy in the morning, but got better later in the day and the snow was amazing. The rumors of abundant, dry, powder are indeed true. We spent most of the morning on the groomed runs, but in the afternoon I ran into Eric, a Canadian from BC, who had already located some of the best powder spots and was looking for company.


The afternoon was awesome! Most impressive was that we were still getting first tracks at 4PM in the afternoon - probably unthinkable everywhere else, but maybe not quite so surprising in a location where the national minimal wage per month is $90, while the price of a lift ticket is $55 (US dollars), food for thought.


If time allows we might try to get in a day or two at Portillo (the supposedly "bigger and better" resort while we are here) - the snow is certainly worth it, but in all honesty the getting to the mountain part itself was a bit of an ordeal: Imagine a complete chaos of a gazillion mini buses, screaming people selling stuff everywhere - pulling your hair, sleeves, clothes to do so, endless waits for everything -- in the end the 25 mile journey took from 7AM to 11AM! So, for my part I might prefer more classic Chilean sights during the rest of my time here, but I am very glad we went and I would very much recommend the Chilean snow for anyone needing a summer ski fix!

Back in White

Got tired of the rainforrest theme, so the blog is back to my beloved serene white - aaah!

Tango!!

What better way to celebrate blog post #100 than with a tango video from Buenos Aires?! I shot this at the Tango show we went to at Cafe Tortoni, and since uploading it to youtube i have discovered that about 525 other people did the same thing, what a waste of bandwidth and information. Oh well, this one is my very personal Tortoni video, which also features the great head of hair of the big texan dude in front of us...

Everyone has a friend in... Buenos Aires!

Went to Buenos Aires last weekend for a three day weekend with my Endeavor friends Gema and Carlos. The B.A visit turned in to an in-official Endeavor eMBA/BCG-Madrid-Alumni summit, as we met up with two other Spanish MBA students, Antonio and Joan, as well as another Endeavor intern Eric (from John Hopkins) and his class mate Leela... and this was just the beginning as our group kept growing and growing due to the fact that everyone brought a list of must-contact friends of friends, too many for me to list by name (and even remember) but enough to ensure that we were constantly cruising through the city in a group of at least 12 people, diving in to the wonder that is night life in Buenos Aires where people are (still) partying in the streets at 7AM despite it being 0 degrees celcius...

I fell in love with Buenos Aires quite rapidly - the city is, as I suspected, to Santiago what Prague is to Budapest or Copenhagen is to Århus: the twice as hip, fun and lively role model. It left me with a with big big smile on my face and desire to come back right away or simply every weekend from now on... aaaah Buenos Aires!


Crossing the Andes, heading two hours west from Santiago to Buenos Aires.

Part of the BA sightseeing crew: Joan, Carlos & Gema (not everyone made it out of bed early enough to also see the city by daylight...)

The famous obelisk, somewhere, lost in the background...

Tango show at Cafe Tortoni.

Afternoon in La Boca (where the spanish and italian immigrants used to settle fresh off the boat, also home to the Boca Juniors soccer team).

La Boca pride.

Valparaiso & Viña del Mar

Went to Val Paraiso and Viña del Mar on a day trip last Sunday. These two cities are situated on the coast (Pacific Ocean) about 1.5 hours from Santiago. Valparaiso used to be an important stop on the route to the US West Coast back in the days before the Panama Canal, needless to say that is a while ago and thus the city is a bit run down these days, albeit full of very charming old houses painted in bright colors, a true camera feast...

View towards Viña from the hills in Valparaiso.

The harbor.

Faded but colorful local beauties (enlarge to see green eye shadow....)

Casas coloradas...

Carlos, Gema & modern art...

Contrast everywhere.

¡Hola Chile!

The time has come to introduce you all to my new temporary home: Santiago de Chile. Founded in 1541, Santiago is situated in Chile's central valley, surrounded by mountains over 5,000 meters tall (-- that's over 16,000 feet) Santiago is about 120KM from the coast on one side and 50KM from the border to Argentina on the other (yes, Chile is that long, narrow country...). Santiago is home to roughly 6 million people (out of a total Chilean population of 15million) and is know for having some of worst smog in the world during fall and winter (aka now).

I am in Chile to complete my MBA summer internship. I was sent here by a not-for-profit organzation called Endeavor, whose goal it is to support high impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets, in order to help of grow/boost local economies. My job is helping an IT resource company named Kibernum develop a new business strategy that will help them "grow to the next level".

Since I arrived about 10 days ago, so many things have happened that recounting them all would be impossible, but here are the highlights of what I have learned about Santiago, Chile, the Chileans etc. so far:

Chile
Is at the end of the world. It is strange but it someways it is really noticeable that there is "nowhere else to go from here". The streets of Santiago this past Sunday were showered in an eerie hazy blue light, as the sun was trying to get through the smog and I wandered through several neighbourhoods, that though mentioned in all tourist guides were devoid of people. Coming from tourist mecca SF, it is a bit odd to visit "city highlights" and run into, say, three other people... I speculate that this may be different in the summer but who knows: over lunch I met "Gavin" -- the gay trinidad-tobagan son of an indian engineer & a british homemaker, who comes here regularly for the happening gay district (& with whom I had a log discussing about how bad the smog is for your complexion...) and he claims that it is always like this. While eerie, there is also a certain beauty to it, the same way that Scotland or Vancouver Island are quietly beautiful...


Santiago
Was beamed here from nothern Italy. The guide books all say it, and they don't lie: Santiago is a lot like cities in nothern Italy. I sometimes feel like I am in Florence on a December day. But the very best comparison I think is Innsbruck (Austrian Alps) which has a similar mountain setting. That said, Santiago is of course entirely its own, which my next point attests to:












"La Contaminacion"


















Smog! Is a serious problem here - seriously - just look at the big yellow blanket hanging over the city in this picture. Asked some people last week what the city/country was planning to do about the problem, and the reply was "well, sometimes we take the bus.... Or when it gets really bad, certain cars aren't allowed to drive." Still trying to find out if there is any kind of long term plan to solve the problem, as it really doesn't do much for Santiago's general level of attractiveness, nor for the health of its population which afterall counts 6 of Chile's 15 million people.

Weather
Chilly! 'tis the winter here after all, that said I think my Danish genes are finally coming to my rescue, I actually don't think it is that cold (it fluctuates between 2-10C/35-50F) despite the fact that several Chileans have explained to me how the Chilean cold is the worst in the world... IMHO, the only reason that they could possibly think that, is because they have never experienced wind-chill. Wind-chill is the Chuck Noris of cold -- all you Scandinavians and Canadians know what I am talking about....

Food
The Chilean kitchen is not well known around the world. There might be a reason for that. I am eating my way through the local specialties and have so far, for my personal taste, encountered more misses than hits. I will note however that I haven't exactly visited any gourmet establishments or eaten seafood yet, so this opinion is subject to change. There is no imminent risk of starvation however, they have wonderful breads, cakes and ice-cream (to be had everywhere even now in the midst of winter - the mall close to my work has no less than 7 largish ice cream parlors...) and there are plenty of US chains.

Update: since originally writing this I have discovered what I so far believe to be the best thing about the Chilean kitchen: Italian food. I have to say that that have extraordinarily fine Italian cooking here, which should most certainly tide me over the next 8 weeks...

Drinks!
Wine is sublime, cheap and available in large quantities are variety everywhere - yeah!! I confess to not having had a Pisco Sour yet, which probably makes me a looser, but there is something about going out on your own, in a foreign place, to consume a kind of hard liquor you've never had before that just hasn't seemed like a great idea. Thursday however, is our first Endeavor intern happy hour aka Pisco Sour time for me...

Update: as obvious from picture to the right, the Pisco Sour enigma has been solved...

Muzak
Long time readers of my blog might remember my entry on "jingles in Tokyo" from last year. No jingles in Santiago, but muzak is omnipresent. In case you ever wondered how artists like Pet Shop Boys or Phil Collins are surving these days, I suspect that their main source of income might be Chilean muzak royalties. The all time winner in this category so far was the pan flute rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Touger than the rest" that I heard in the metro the other night...

Friends


















Are few and far between. One of the downsides of doing an internship far from home is that, well, you don't really know anyone... Luckily there are two other Endeavor interns in Santiago, a spanish couple from MIT, Gema and Carlos, who have turned out to be darling and fun people. And of course there are people like "Gavin" who provide random short term entertainment...

Sights
It is almost time to wrap up for today, so without much further ado, I'll leave you with the random Santiago tourist shot. By now I have actually managed to see quite a bit in a few marathon weekend days, such as:

















Santiago from above - this time with slightly less smog...

Nobel Prize Winner Pablo Neruda's Santiago House.

The odd shot from the San Francisco church garden - this is where the city was founded.

The presidential palace at La Moneda and with its Salvador Allende statue (Allende was the Chilean president before the Pinochet coup on Sept. 11 (no joke) 1973.)

Que Frio! Santiago, Chile, 5:48AM, 3º Celcius, 37º Fahrenheit

Touched down in Santiago this morning at 5:48AM - it was early, dark and cold, making it seem a bit like landing on another planet after having left Berkeley on a beatiful summer day yesterday. My employer had kindly offered to be there to chauffeur me to where I am now: an "apart hotel" downtown which will be my home for the next 10 weeks. He was also kind enough to suggest that I take the entire day off, to rest and settle in, which I of course (wanting to be "eager beaver intern") have declined.; In a few hours I will be heading to the office for an afternoon meet and greet, first however I am about to venture out under the yellow Santiago sky to locate my nearest Starbucks. Yellow, you may ask, to which I can only say: the smog is real - if you've been to Shanghai, multiple that by 2-3. It adds a nice Blade Runner-ish touch, keeping up the other-world sensation...

Riding Off Into the Sunset...

We're done. Our project for the Mamiraua Institute has been completed with what was meant to be a final presentation of our results this afternoon. In sad reality the meeting we had scheduled in order to present to the four key directors of the institute, ended up being canceled last minute, as only one of them was able to attend in the end. We decided to post-pone rather than spend two hours presenting 90 pages of writing and 50 power point slides, in english, to the one person on the management team who speaks only portuguese...

Not that I am really all that sad about not being able to present - we were crunching up until the last minute and it is sort of nice to just get to hand over the DVD roms with the final product and relax. Of course it would also be great to get feedback from our clients, since however our expectations for what it will look like are somewhat low (we are not telling them what they want to hear) I don't really mind waiting until later in the year for that part.

Feels GREAT to be done and in a few minutes we will head out for a little barbecue/birthday/goodbye celebration that our new-found best friend Cesar (who was our guide when we went to the reserve) has organized for us.

This might be the end of our internet access in Brazil -- tomorrow we head back to Manaus (capital of Amazonas state) in order to be able to catch our Saturday flight back to SFO via Miami. [The local Tefe-Manaus flight only operates twice a week which is why we are leaving so early]. Hopefully we'll get to do some last cool sightseeing stuff in/from Manaus, personally I wouldn't mind another river tour as I feel that just haven't gotten to enjoy it quite enough. I know we keep repeating this but it really is AMAZING!

Oh well, almost time for the next adventure, I am starting to get mentally prepared for the fact that by this time next week i will be in Santiago, Chile working at my summer internship company Kibernum. Crazy!

Nano vs. Beetle

Everyday while we've been here I have gone on two-three daily walks around the (beautiful) compound that surrounds the offices that we have been working in here, in order to get a minimal bit of exercise, as it is not possible to run/walk here otherwise due to the a. the heat and b. the freak show-factor/danger of being a blond foreign woman running around Tefe.

The walks have been a great way to observe the abundant local flora and fauna [small aside at this point: one of the coolest thing about this place is how everything just grows everywhere. Out on the river we saw a huge island that had "grown in" over the last few years, the water is that rich with sediments and this gives me quite high hopes that a lot of the deforested Amazon rain forest can and will grow back given the chance to do so.]-- in particular i have developed a keen interest* in this one species that I have lovingly dubbed "the largest beetle I have ever seen"... So when my slacker team mates (no walks for them) refused to believe me, I had to bring back photo evidence, which led to the shot below. See for yourself, it's Nano vs. Beetle!!


* In case you are wondering "why the beetle"? The sad answer is that there happened to be a large number of formerly-live ones around - whereas the extraordinarily beautiful blue butterflies for example are extremely hard to get a closer look at due to their fleeting habits...