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.