CPTJMIY: Kevin Friedman on OfertaSimple and living life as a pirate

It’s been awhile since our last installment of Crazy People That Just Might Inspire You, but if there’s one thing you can count on in life it’s that there are always more crazy people out there.  We think you’ll agree that today’s Crazy Person, Kevin Friedman, is crazy in ways that sound pretty fun.

We originally met Kevin through some mutual friends in San Francisco awhile back.  He’s got an MBA from one of the best business schools and some might even say a somewhat conservative early career in banking, but somewhere along the way he chose a more unconventional path.  When we met him he had  already left the corporate world behind and was engaged in at least a few unconventional and interesting businesses (more to come on these); now, somehow he’s heading up a business in Buenos Aires and other parts of LATAM called OfertaSimple while still living in San Francisco – obviously we had to find out more.  Let’s do this.

Kevin Friedman, the interview

Kevin, before we get started, tell us where in the world you are answering these questions?

At the back table in Jovino on Union Street in San Francisco.

When people ask you what you do for a living, how do you respond?

I usually lie through my teeth and make up the job du jour.  I guess I’m a little bit sensitive that I fill ATMs with twenties for a living.

Fair enough.  Other than filling ATMS, what are your primary motivations/inspirations in life?

I had a list of 30+ inspirational people from a few years ago… except Tiger Woods was on the top of that list.  So I’ve learned to admire specific characteristics of some notable people, but I look to my parents, my fiancée and a few close friends for real inspiration.

Before we get into your current project at OfertaSimple, tell us a little more about your background…

We understand that you are “The man behind the man” at MisterArcher.com…   What does this mean?  What is MisterArcher and what do you do there?

Mister Archer is my nom de plume for a bon vivant gallivanting around San Francisco exposing the unique and under-appreciated.  The motto is “Inspirations for your Explorations” and we share the ideas that are worthy through a members-only newsletter (sign up at MisterArcher.com).

That is a lot of fancy words in a row!  How/why did you get involved with MisterArcher?

I started Mister Archer to fight off my inner-couch potato.

We also understand that you started TValacarte.org in a campaign to take down Comcast… what’s that all about?

Does anyone believe that paying $150/month to watch a dozen or so channels is a good deal?  My frustration boiled over about a year and a half ago when I realized that Comcast’s strangehold on cable choked off the competition.  I believe if we can aggregate our demand and coordinate a movement away from Big Cable, we will ultimately be rewarded with cost-effective, high-quality programming.  Of course, if you prefer channel surfing through 300 channels in order to develop the strongest thumb muscles on the block, then you’re probably better off with the status quo.

Nice Time write-up about it by the way, how did you manage to get them to pick it up?

The Time write-up happened organically.  The author, Brad Tuttle, saw one of my comments on another related story about the cable industry, then he followed up directly with me.

Ok, let’s hear about this OfertaSimple thing…

Give us the pitch, what are you doing down in South America?

I’m running away from the United States economy (half-kidding).  America is flat-lining… while much needed reforms (patent, immigration, tax) are stuck in a rubber room due to partisanship.  On the other hand, emerging markets are implementing thoughtful policies and programs improving their GDP.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to try and launch an international business.

What is OfertaSimple?

OfertaSimple.com.ar is an online service that connects consumers with local businesses. The OfertaSimple business is based on the “collective buying power” concept that has now proved successful throughout the world. Every day, OfertaSimple features an exclusive deal with one local business in each city where we operate. Local businesses benefit from customer acquisition without having to pay an upfront cost. Consumers love the huge discounts and the sensation of discovering local businesses.

Who should be interested in this site?

Some would think that our core customer is the bargain shopper.  In fact, our most loyal customers are working professionals short on time, but excited to experience new spots in the City.  Time is their most important resource.  In the time it takes to cream and sugar their morning coffee, we provide them with a recommendation of a new spot to check out.  And we require that the business provide a 40% – 90% off discount as a reward for our customers for trying out something new.

Can you give us some examples of recent deals?

Sure.  We’ve offered a great range of deals like over 60% off sushi libre at Aires de Geisha in Palermo Soho to 75% off a parapente flight.  Although we are getting some cool spots approaching us to run deals for them, we’re still finding the best deals through our sales team and member recommendations.

How’s business going?

Overall, the business is going swimmingly.  We’ve been fortunate to have hired some tremendous employees for roles ranging from sales to marketing and customer service.  Our country manager, Eugenia, is the glue to the team.  She rocks!

There are a few other competitors who have also recently entered the marketplace, including Groupon.  But I believe there will still be room for them since someone who buys a deal on our site, might also find a few other deals attractive on their site.  Ultimately, these purchases are not mutually exclusive.

How did you get involved?

I got involved with OfertaSimple by buying the website domain.  The rest of the founding team has been living in LatAm for the past 7 years.  We drew straws to determine our responsibilities and I ended up with the CTO short-straw.

Anything else we should know about OfertaSimple?

We are looking to build an OfertaSimple mobile app for Blackberries and iPhone.  Interested app developers, please drop me a line at kevin@ofertasimple.com.

Back to you for a minute…

Were you always off doing crazy things?  When was the last time you had what most people would consider to be a ‘real’ job?

It’s been a while.  I’ve actually been trying to get a part-time job as a sports consultant.  For example, I’d love to share some zany brainstorms with the SF Giants… like bottom of the 9th, Giants are tied with one out and a runner on third base.  The other team hits a deep fly ball… definitely deep enough for the runner to tag.  Typically, the left fielder catches the ball then throws home late while the winning run scores.  Instead, the left fielder should intentionally bobble the ball, as if they are a volleyball setter while moving towards home plate.  They wouldn’t control the ball until they were within range to throw the runner out at home.  It might be tough to execute, but even if there’s a 1% chance of success better than 100% certainty of losing.  These ideas are not available to the L.A. Trolley Dodgers.

What was your last ‘real’ job and why did you leave it?

My last real job was working in Corporate Strategy for Roost.com.  I enjoyed working there and we had a strong executive team, but I decided to leave right after we raised an $8mm series B round.  My passion was to launch our rentals product, but with the real estate market upside-down, we decided to focus on the core search technology.

Would you ever go back to that kind of work environment?

Certainly.  Although I’ve opted for the pirate’s life, I do miss the security of a steady salary.  But what I miss most is the office cooler conversations.  I haven’t heard a good joke in months because it simply isn’t the same chatting with the team through a skype window or on IM.

I can definitely relate to that!  Maybe we should create an online virtual water cooler…  Sorry, back to the interview: Was it scary when you first started off on your own?   Anything you would do differently in retrospect?

Not only was it scary… it still is scary.  I still have doubts enter my mind during some weak moments in the wee hours of the morning.  A little stress might help to motivate, but a lot of stress is counter-productive.  But I’ve been lucky to have a strong support network with my founding team, my close friends and my fiancée.  (Yup, I know how to type accents over vowels.)  I am also heartened by the inspirational Marianne Williamson quote about “playing small does not serve the world.”  Touché.

I am impressed by your vowel accenting – a key skill for the success any international business.  Any advice for people who are reading this from a cubicle at a job they don’t love wishing they could get out there and pursue their passions?

I don’t think I’ve earned the right to share unsolicited advice to others yet.  But, I will share a quote from Charles Swindoll that stays top of mind.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

Thanks Kevin, good luck with OfertaSimple.com.ar!

THANK YOU, Ryan and Jen!  It’s been a pleasure to meet you both and I sincerely hope your journey inspires others to explore the world and pursue their ventures.

Interview post-mortem

This is craziness at it’s best.  I always have tremendous respect for anyone who risks failure to pursue their passions and Kevin is a great example of someone who is doing just that.  On more of a side note, I also think the idea of starting a business that focuses on international markets without necessarily having to relocate yourself is pretty novel.  I continue to be surprised by just how many different possibilities there are out there… rather than the 3-5 life/career options that most people think they have (e.g., stick with current job, look for other job in same industry, go get an advanced degree, etc.), in reality there are an infinite number of options – often they require risk, but if you know you aren’t ever going to be truly happy doing what you’re doing today and there is some possibility that you will be if you take the leap, the odds seem pretty good.  I heard a story recently of a guy that left his 10+ year successful business career to become a professional golf caddy… it’s been a few years now and he absolutely LOVES it.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

Thanks again for the inspiration Kevin.  If anyone out there knows other crazy people we should be talking to, please let us know!

Our career break came with a happy ending

Today is the end of an era.  The dawn of a new age.  The chocolate of a new chip.

Today was Jen’s first day at work.

It’s been awhile since our last update, so I’ll take a step back…

Jen’s first day at work:  How did we get here?

As previously mentioned, Jen started looking for a real job once we got here to Seattle.  This went well.

She interviewed with 3 companies and got 3 very compelling offers before deciding to halt the process with a few other companies to accept what seems like a perfect-fit opportunity.  I won’t say the name of her new employer (yes, you know of them), but I will say that it seems like a great role for her, the company itself has an awesome culture and it’s the kind of company/job that she can get excited about going to work to in the morning.

As you know, our biggest goal on post-career break re-entry has been to design our new lives with an emphasis on balance.  Long nights at work or working at home on our laptops are a thing of the past for us–especially since Daphne (our new puppy) is now the boss of us (completely and totally) and she would not approve of us working late (and would punish us severely).  In truth, she disapproves of anything other than 100% of our attention being focused on her 24 hours a day – now that I think of it, I guess she is kind of like a consulting project in that way… except much cuter.

Daphne yellow lab puppy asleep image

Reminds me of late nights in conference rooms (except replace the bone with a laptop)

Anyway… so, it’s too soon to tell how Jen’s job will work out, but we take it as a good sign that she was the last person in the office today at 5:20pm.  Yes, I said  5:20 pm.  And, they even pay her!

So, it turns out that you really can go take 6 months off to travel around the world with no negative impact whatsoever on your career – actually, I’d say the career break had a hugely positive impact in differentiating her in the recruiting process.  Equally surprising, you can apparently also find awesome jobs that pay well, are exciting and challenging and offer real-deal work/life balance.  Who knew?

What about me?

I’m currently working on no less than 8 different entrepreneurial projects and advising on a few others.  I’ve started writing code again… pretty crazy, but really fun – so rewarding to actually make something real again after such a long time.  More details to come in the future on what these projects actually are, but suffice to say, I’m having a blast.

Also, as of today, I am now a stay-at-home puppy dad.  Daphne is great.  She will be even greater when she is a little lower maintenance 🙂

What about Daphne?

She’s awesome.  Sometimes we want to kill her, but mostly she’s awesome.  In the last 3 weeks she has gone from 15 to 23 pounds (>50% increase!!!).  There are still some potty training challenges, but for the most part she’s got a handle on it.  We actually were able to apply our consulting skills to this problem and created a pretty fancy and super useful spreadsheet model to track her ‘schedule’ – stay tuned for a future post where we’ll share it in addition to some other thoughts we have on puppy parenting.

Daphne yellow lab puppy image

"it's a good thing I'm cute!"

She loves to play with her cousin Murphy (my sister’s dog).  And, even though he is more than twice her size, she can take him down (sometimes):

In Summary…

This is the (happy) end of our career break and the beginning of the next phase of our lives.  Life is great.  We are living pretty much exactly the lives that we had wanted and it is spectacular.  We highly recommend it.

If any of you are out there wishing you could take an extended career break but are concerned about what will happen after, our advice is to just go for it.  Who knows, things could turn out even better than you could imagine.

p.s. Now that Jen is at work, I will have more time to do some blogging, so stay tuned!

Warning: Buenos Aires apartment scam

UPDATE 1/9/2013:  To avoid any confusion, this article/warning is NOT about the rental company DiscoverBA.com.  We were recently contacted by the owner there who told us that this post has a high Google rank for “DiscoverBA review” due to a few similar keywords.  While we don’t have any experience with DiscoverBA, they seem like a legit company and the scam below is definitely not referring to them.

—————————-

A reader recently emailed us asking if we could help publicize the story of how he got scammed out of getting his deposit back when renting an apartment in Buenos Aires in an attempt to shut-down the scammer (which has been remarkably successful thus far–read on…) and to help other people avoid becoming victims.  We hate scams (and in Argentina, there are MANY),  so we were happy to oblige.

Everything is done in cash in Buenos Aires (because no one wants to pay taxes), the police are corrupt and crime is high so you have to be extremely, extremely careful no matter what you are doing–being taken for your deposit on a rental apartment is, unfortunately, incredibly common unless you go with one of the reputable companies (which may cost a bit more, but you are guaranteed a great place and you will get your deposit back, so in my opinion, well worth it).  Check out our guide on how to rent an apartment in Buenos Aires for some tips/tricks to minimize your risk and some mini-reviews of several agencies that we worked with.

The scam

Below is a reprint of the story that was just sent to us:

My six-month stay in Buenos Aires ended on a bad note this past Tuesday when I was scammed out of the deposit for the apartment I had been renting for three months starting in August. The apartment owner’s name is Valeria de Santos and the unit in question is located in Recoleta, at Larrea 1393 at the corner of French, apartment #PB2. I found it on Craiglist and jumped at the chance to live in a nice area for a relative bargain, though in hindsight renting through an agency or through a referral may have been the smarter way to go.

I had told Valeria that I needed to check out at noon because a cab would be waiting to take me to the airport. She arrived late with her mother and inspected the apartment to make sure it was in good order (it was). Valeria said that my deposit was waiting for me at her mother’s office, which was supposedly just a few blocks away, off of Pueyrredon and Santa Fe. She asked if her mother could get in the cab with me and get dropped off by her office where she would retrieve the deposit and return it to me.

I had dealt directly with the mother before when I first occupied the apartment so I didn’t find her suggestion odd. But I now realize that I made a number of mistakes. First, I returned the keys to Valeria before getting my deposit back. Secondly, I let my guard down and didn’t think to accompany her mother to the “office” after we dropped her off at the corner, opting instead to wait for her in the cab with my luggage.

The mother disappeared down the street and never returned. I waited 45 minutes and called Valeria a dozen times before telling the driver that we needed to leave because I couldn’t miss my flight. I called her numerous times at the airport and e-mailed her with no response. I was finally able to reach her Wednesday, when she assured me that she would wire the funds to me via PayPal that same day. Well, it didn’t come through, and I’ve been calling and e-mailing her since with no luck. My messages to her have gotten angrier and angrier to the point where I threatened to hop on a plane the next day and come looking for her — which I would be crazy enough to do if I was confident I could track her down.

The strange thing is that Valeria and her mother were a pleasure to deal with during my three-month stay in the apartment, responding to my calls and e-mails and showing up to address any problems promptly. It’s bizarre that they would pull something like this off at the very end.

I’ll continue to call and e-mail and harass Valeria and her mother in any way I can until I get my money back, and perhaps I’ll find myself in Buenos Aires sooner than I think. But for now, I’d just like to defame her on every relevant forum I can find and bring awareness to what I went through. Hopefully you’ll learn from my mistakes.

It’s really too bad that this happened, but I will say that to get out of Buenos Aires after 6 months and only be scammed out of $200 is actually pretty darn good.  In our 6 months, we encountered taxi scams (fast meter), counterfeit money scams, tour guide pricing scams, and were almost taken for $400 on the deposit for our first 2 week apartment.  Good times.

The entertaining part

The above story was actually posted on the local Buenos Aires expat forum.  Within about 5 hours, there were 100+ responses by the expat community.  Many of them decided to use some clever online detective skills to determine that this woman and her mother had been running scams on tourists in BA for years – not only via apartments, but also through a fake Spanish school, a fake tour guide business and many others.  They also found her real name, address, phone number and other personal details (including where she has claimed to be an Oxford trained lawyer on Wikipedia among other places).

As the expats diligently uncovered more and more information about this woman, strangely enough all of the websites and references to her many ‘businesses’ started disappearing from the internet.  Clearly many of the expats are software developers though and they were able to backup pretty much everything and rehost on alternate off-shore servers.  The thread on the forum showing this whole thing unraveling is long, but extremely entertaining and worth taking a look at:   http://baexpats.org/expat-life/11930-stay-away-apartment-rental.html

A summary of what was uncovered

One of the members on the expat forum put together a nice summary of many of the facts uncovered which I’ve reposted below.  Note:  this isn’t interesting reading, I’m just reposting it so that there is yet another website that has all of these keywords in hopes that any future potential victims do some googling before doing business with her.

So, in summary this thread is a warning about Florencia Marina Daud (aka Florencia Daud Othacehe). It is strongly advised that you avoid any kind of business dealings or financial transactions with her. If you do enter into financial dealings with her it is recommended that you proceed with extreme caution. She has disappeared with the deposits of several visitors to the city who entered into temporary rental agreements with her.

Florencia Daud
DNI: 26260151
CUIT: 272626015115 (click on the green arrow to see a picture from the website http://www.nic.ar/entidades.html)

She has gone under the names Valeria de Santos and Veronica and often uses the username flormarina on the internet.

Her mother has used a name similar to Maria Eugenia

She has had various businesses registered to her addresses:
Discover BA
Florencia Marina Daud (discoverba@hotmail.com)
+1.5411480527
Fax:
Av Pueyrredon 2261
Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires 1119
AR

D&A Daud & Asociados
Av. Pueyrredon 2261 2nd floor
BUENOS AIRES – ARGENTINA
tel/fax +54-11-4805-2742

Recoleta Spanish School
Pueyrredon 2261, 2nd floor
Entidad Registrante: Florencia Daud
País: Argentina
Actividad: Otra
Domicilio: Chenaut 1967 4 A
Ciudad/Localidad: Buenos Aires
Provincia: Buenos Aires
Código Postal: 1426
Teléfono: 4776 3188
Fax: 4776 3188

D&A Daud & Asociados Buenos Aires, Argentina
Address : Av. Chenaut 1967 4 A, Buenos Aires 1426, Argentina
Phone No. : +5411-4776-3188

According to the Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal, she’s licensed to practice law here in Capital. Click the green arrow for a picture from the website.

Other phone numbers she has used:
15-5346-4957
15-5259-1319

And email addresses:
sweetmarina2007@hotmail.com
valeriadesantos@hotmail.com

She has advertised her apartments on craigslist
She appears in wikipedia
She has an account on EchangeVacances.com (click for pictures)

and has had various personal and business web pages of her own most of which have been taken down since these accusations have appeared:
http://www.buenosairesguest.com/
http://florenciamarina.blogspot.com/
http://daudlegal.com/

If you have been a victim of a scam as a visitor you can contact the following authorities:

Defensoría de Turista, 4302 7816. Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835 (Museo de Bellas Artes “Benito Quinquela Martín”) La Boca.
Mail: turista@defensoria.org.ar

Comisaría del turista
Av. Corrientes 436
0800 999 5000 / 4346 5748
mail: turista@policiafederal.gov.ar

If you have returned to your country and are unable to retrieve funds owed to you by identifiable persons as a last resort you can tell them you are going to contact AFIP (the revenue authorities) to have their tax records reviewed:
http://www.afip.gov.ar/contacto/
Centro de denuncias : 0800-999-2347

There is also another thread about the activities of Florencia Daud on TripAdvisor

In Summary

Be careful in Buenos Aires (and/or wherever you are traveling) and if something like this happens to you, let the online communities know about it – they may or may not be able to help you directly, but they can certainly help get the word out so that it’s harder for scammers like this to be successful.

Thanks again for the tip!

Meet Daphne… our newest and furriest family member

This morning we met Daphne and her brothers and sisters.  This afternoon, we took her home.  She is pretty cute.

Yellow-lab-puppy-face-image

This was the car ride home - she slept pretty much the whole way

We explored the rescue option for awhile and went back and forth on it quite a bit, but ultimately decided to go the 8-week puppy route and found a fantastic local breeder that’s only 15 minutes away.  We actually found them by meeting a beautiful dog hanging out at our neighborhood Peets coffee and talking to its owners who directed us to this breeder:  http://www.himoonlabradors.com/ Great breeder and great dogs.  We went this morning just to check it out, but we were so impressed that after picking up a bunch of supplies, we went back to bring Daphne home.

Yellow-lab-puppy-alert image

Sometimes, she's awake and alert...

yellow-lab-puppy-sleeping image

...but, so far, usually she's sleeping

yellow-lab-puppy-smiling image

We like it best when she smiles

We are thrilled to be new parents.  And ecstatic to have our very own furry and demanding reason to never work crazy hours again.  This is a key part of our rehabilitation.  Should be an interesting first night…  We’ll keep you updated.

p.s.  More first-day pics here:  https://www.consultingrehab.com/photo_gallery/?album=Daphne

Stuff overload

For 7 months we lived out of 5 suit cases (2 roller boards and 3 duffels).  We went from short-term apartment to short-term apartment; hotel to hotel and later, after returning to Seattle, family guest room to family guest room with only the things in those 5 bags.  That all changed on October 11th.

On October 11th at 8am PST, we were reunited with our storage unit and all of the stuff within it.

City storage sign image

Stuff don't live here anymore

We put said stuff into a big yellow truck and drove it from San Francisco to Seattle.  By the way… there are a surprising amount of mountain passes on highway 5 in northern California and Southern Oregon – they aren’t big, but they are big enough to make it impossible to faster than 45 MPH in a 22 foot moving truck.  Expert tip:  it takes WAY longer to drive long distances at 45 MPH than it does at 70 MPH.

Penske truck image

Surprisingly less powerful than it looks

We now are settling into our new apartment (which is even more awesome than we had anticipated) and are thoroughly overwhelmed by the unbelievable volume of stuff that we now have.  There is stuff everywhere.  It is unclear why anyone would want or need so much stuff – and keep in mind, that we got rid of a lot of stuff before we left for Argentina!  We are thankful that we have so many closets in which we can put all of this stuff… we have 10+ more boxes full of stuff that we see absolutely no point in unpacking.

Closet full of boxes image

What's in them? Who cares?

It seemed commonplace before we left, but after 7 months of living with very little, we are now on stuff overload.

This reminded me of a blog that I started following awhile back about “the art of minimalism” called Far Beyond the Stars (I originally found this blog through the post “27 Reasons why you should never have a job” which is worth reading).  This guy quit his job awhile back and decided to live life as minimally as possible.  Apparently he has been able to live with just having 57 things (this includes each article of clothing!)… check out the list of what his 57 things are.  I’m impressed.  And, I can absolutely see the kind of freedom that this type of lifestyle would bring.  Our closet full of unopen boxes probably has over 1000 things in it.

Anyone else experimented with minimalism?  How many things do you have?

p.s. Anyone need a 5 piece bedroom furniture set in Seattle?  I’m not kidding…

And… we’re back

Coming back after a long trip can be an experience in itself.  We’ve been back in the US for 2 weeks now after spending 6 months in Argentina and Chile.

Buenos Aires is a drama queen–she cried the day before we left all day (AKA it rained).  Seattle welcomed us in the only way it knows how:  5 straight days of rain.  Awesome.

Luckily, things have improved since then and so far, we really like it here.

It’s a little weird being back in the US…

Probably the weirdest thing is how big the cups are when you order a drink and just general food portions – not hard to understand the underlying cause of the obesity problem here.

The second weirdest thing is that pretty much everyone is speaking English all the time.  Even after 2 weeks we still have to stop ourselves from speaking in Spanish when encountering strangers (e.g., “permiso” instead of “excuse me”).  Not an issue when in a real conversation with someone we know, but we’re just so accustomed to assuming that all strangers are Spanish speakers that it may take awhile to adjust.

Also, it’s quite a bit more expensive here, but we expected that.

Good news:  It doesn’t really feel like being ‘back’…

There are several reasons why it feels like we are basically still on our crazy adventure despite being back in the US:

  1. We’ve never lived in Seattle before, so are really enjoying exploring a new city together (it doesn’t hurt that Seattle is pretty great)
  2. Much like in South America, we still don’t have our own place to live and are bouncing around in temporary housing (special thanks to my sister and Jen’s parents for giving us places to stay!)
  3. We are still wearing the same clothes and living out of the same suitcases – due to poor planning, all of our other clothes are still in storage in San Francisco
  4. We are still gainfully unemployed – unsurprisingly, this makes quite a big difference in one’s daily schedule and level of stress
  5. We decide what we do each day – We still get to spend tons of time with each other, wake-up whenever we want and do whatever we think we’d enjoy each day

It’s pretty cool actually… While we will obviously need to address the unemployment thing in the near future (or at least the income thing) and would like to have our own place to live and some clothes without holes in them, our goal is to keep the general feeling of freedom and enjoyment of life going indefinitely.  I wasn’t sure what to expect upon return, but at this point, I’m extremely optimistic that we can make our change in mindset and lifestyle permanent.

So what have we been doing….?

We spent the bulk of the last 2 weeks driving around, getting to know the different neighborhoods of Seattle and looking at apartments.  At first we were looking for short-term furnished apartments, but we quickly discovered that for the most part short-term furnished options are either very, very expensive, or very, very crappy and sometimes both.  So, instead we started looking at real apartments and we found one that we absolutely love.

Living room image

This isn't even the whole thing

As of Oct. 12th, we are excited to say that we’ll be living just off Green Lake – only a block from my sister!  My sister and I haven’t lived in the same half of the country since high-school, so it should be really fun to be neighbors.  She just moved to Seattle in August, so we will get to explore the city together.

Stove image

Also, we will cook things on this beast

Did we mention that housing in Seattle is like half the cost of San Francisco???  This super-modern 2 bedroom right off of the lake with a patio and washer dryer in one of the pricier Seattle neighborhoods will cost significantly less than the small 1-bedroom we had back in SF.   I understand the value proposition of living in the Bay Area less and less (though ask me again after it rains here all winter).

Other than looking for housing, we’ve really enjoyed spending time with Jen’s parents and my sister and her new puppy Murphy.

What about getting a dog…?

We’re still absolutely planning on getting a dog and having lives that allow us to keep it alive (was a major consideration in our housing options).  That said, spending as much time as we have with Murphy has altered our perspective on it a little bit…  Murphy is a 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy and is unbelievably cute and fun.

Murphy sleeping image

You have to take pictures of him while he's sleeping... otherwise he is in constant motion

Murphy is one of the most gentle and well behaved puppies we’ve ever met.  Nonetheless, Murphy is an unbelievable amount of work and we have the utmost respect for my sister who works incredibly hard every day to keep him healthy and happy.  After some puppy-sitting, our view on getting a dog has changed in two primary ways:

  1. We no longer feel the same degree of urgency – we’ll still get a dog sometime in the next several months, but no longer do we feel the need to get one immediately (it helps that we will only live a block away from Murphy)
  2. We are no longer dead-set on getting a puppy – while Murphy is unbelievably cute and it seems like a really cool thing to be able to be with a dog as he/she develops, spending more time with Murphy has also opened our eyes to the many potential benefits of getting a slightly older and already somewhat trained rescue dog.  We’ll see…

What about job stuff…?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Actually, Jen has been having lots of networking meetings and even had her first interview earlier this week (ironically, it was for a consulting firm… but a very, very different type of consulting firm – more on that later).

I will continue to play with start-up ideas at least through the end of this year and will likely write more about some of them as things progress (which will be much, much easier once we have our own place to live!).

What about friends/social stuff…?

So far so good.  We haven’t been super focused on this yet as we’ve been mostly running around trying to find a place to live, but we’ve reconnected with a few old friends that live here and are already making some new friends.

We were lucky enough to get an email from Warren and Betsy from http://www.marriedwithluggage.com who read our last post that we were coming to Seattle and wanted to connect to introduce us to some folks here before they left on their own long-term trip (after 2 years of planning, they are finally leaving today for 3 years!).  It turns out that they were the Seattle hosts of Meet, Plan, Go! which you may remember from our earlier post.  They had been running weekly happy hours for people that are interested in getting together and talking about career breaks and/or long-term travel and we were able to attend one.  It was great meeting Warren and Betsy (and we look forward to keeping in touch while they are on the road and following their great blog) and it’s also really exciting to get in touch we such a dynamic and eclectic community of people interested in travel here in Seattle – a great first step to making sure we have a diverse social network.   We are eager to attend future happy hours.

What’s next…?

We continue to enjoy life while we settle ourselves into Seattle and co-create our new lives here together.  Exciting stuff.

p.s. stay tuned – we promise to get back to a more regular blogging schedule and still have tons of stuff to say about Argentina and Chile and Career Breaks and long-term travel and other stuff too.

Rehab phase 1 is almost complete; Phase 2 is coming

Today is our last day in Chile. Tomorrow we return to Argentina. Next week we return to the US.

Phase 1 of rehab has been intense

We have been unemployed and in South America for almost exactly 6 months now.

For 6 months we have had no deadlines and no responsibilities.

We’ve had neither cellphone nor blackberry and we’ve tried to exclusively spend our time doing things that we want to do rather than things that we were supposed to do. For instance, look how long it’s been since I last got a haircut:

I need a haircut image

Luckily, I'm getting a haircut later this week

We’ve slept for as many hours as we chose to every night (except for the damn 4am geyser tour in Atacama).

Geysers de tatio image

Stupid geysers. Stupid 4am. Stupid, stupid.

We’ve taken lots of daytime naps, we’ve enjoyed bottles of wine for lunch and we’ve consumed more steak then we had eaten in the previous 10 years combined.

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Perfectly cooked Argentine beef image

And we'd do it again

At times, we’ve seen amazing landscapes. At times, we’ve sat on park benches and watched dogs play for hours. At times, we’ve sat on benches and had people try to steal Jen’s purse – that was entertaining.

We’ve read lots of books. We’ve tried to read many Spanish newspapers. This has gone poorly.

We’ve lived in 2 countries and immersed ourselves in their cultures- Argentina for 4.5 months and Chile for 1.5 months. We are happy to help you plan your trips.

We’ve sat in cafes for hours – in the beginning we had lots to talk about… later we just stared at each other… then we started bringing books… then we ran out of books… Now we don’t go to cafes so much.

Each of these things has been a critical part of our rehabilitation. By completely removing ourselves from our old environment and the associated pressures/peers/challenges, we were forced to gain perspective. We were humbled on a daily basis. It was annoying.

Through immersing ourselves in foreign cultures in which nothing is expected of us and no one cares about our resumes or has a vested interest in what we do next, we found perspective on who we had been and on who we want to be. At times it was freeing, at times it was frustrating – both are part of the process.

Through meeting people on the road (both travelers and locals) our perspective on what life can look like and the sheer number of different possibilities that exist and can lead to happiness has expanded immensely. As has our definition of happiness-now we think it requires frequent napping.

Finding this perspective was the goal of rehab phase 1. This isn’t the end. We don’t have any answers, but this new and broader perspective will serve as the foundation for phase 2.

Rehab phase 2:  Re-entry / where we go from here

Next week we will fly back to the US and begin phase 2. We are not sad to return, we are excited to start a new chapter of this adventure. It’s like a choose your own adventure book, except written for adults instead of 8 year olds.

To say that we are ‘returning’ is not entirely accurate… we don’t have a specific home to return to. We have a storage unit full of stuff in San Francisco and a car in Seattle. We have no jobs and no place to live that is our own. And, due to poor/rushed planning all of our other clothes are in that storage unit, so we will have to continue wearing the same 5 outfits that we have been wearing for the last 6 months even though all of our sweaters and socks have holes in them. This should make a strong impression in job interviews.

We won’t be picking up where we left off, we will be starting fresh in a new city. We are planning to live in Seattle for a variety of reasons. It will likely rain a lot, but also be much cheaper.

The prospect of starting fresh is a little intimidating at times, but with our newly broadened perspective, we are excited to construct lives that offer us balance. We don’t know what it will look like exactly. From a distance, it might look like a dancing penguin. No one knows. That’s what makes it exciting.

dancing penguin image

Let's hope that it doesn't look like this dancing penguin

Jen is looking for a ‘real’ job. I plan to pursue a number of entrepreneurial projects that I have been toying with for some time. In both cases, we will only consider things that we think we will genuinely enjoy. We have already accumulated plenty of option value in our careers and are ready to cash in and find things we love. The evil mongeese can suck it.

We’d like to have a dog. And we’d like to have lives that allow us to keep the dog alive. We suspect that the dog will appreciate this as well.

We plan to have hobbies outside of work. We’ve heard that this is possible. Jen would like to teach English as a foreign language in the evenings. I’m excited to return to improv comedy. Maybe we’ll even do something athletic–fear not, we pledge to continue drinking enough wine to keep ourselves firmly out of shape.

We believe that we are ready for phase 2, but re-entry comes with a number of risks. We need to be ever-vigilant for any signs of relapse.

Signs that we might be relapsing:

If any of the following occur, we may need to buy plane tickets or at least some steak…

  1. We don’t actively pursue hobbies
  2. We eat take-out dinners more than twice a week
  3. We have more than 3 days in a row of unhappiness at work (a couple of days can happen anywhere from time to time – at 3, we torch the place)
  4. More than 50% of the friends that we spend time with on a regular basis have MBAs
  5. We spend more than 10% of our social interactions complaining about our jobs
  6. We eat lunch while still typing
  7. The idea of getting a dog dies due to impracticalities of work schedule
  8. The dog itself dies due to neglect
  9. Multiple instances of cancelling social events occurs due to last-minute work conflicts
  10. We check emails on our phone while mid-conversation with others
  11. We don’t manage to leave the country at least twice a year
  12. We achieve Starwood platinum status (and are proud of it)

There are almost certainly others. We will need your help to avoid relapsing. That is why we absolutely plan to continue this blog. It will become less about South America (though there are still tons of topics we’ve been meaning to write about on Chile/Argentina and still plan to), and more about Seattle and our re-entry.

We hope to be an example not just of a couple that left our jobs to travel for 6 months, but one that also made a successful return to our careers and are better off than we were before we left.

Stay tuned.

Any other relapse warning signs you can think of that we should watch out for??

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Our vacation from a vacation from a vacation in San Pedro continues – here’s what we did days 3 and 4, as well as our thoughts on a few restaurants and hotels in San Pedro.  (P.S. Day 4 includes the most incredible natural landscape we’ve ever seen . . . and we get around.)  If you missed it, you can read Part 1 of our trip review here.

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

Day 3: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche

Tour company: Layana

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: The big attraction for this tour is going out to Laguna Cejar, where the water is so salty that you float.  A lot.  This sounded cool, so we signed up.  What we didn’t hear before we went was that the water is cold.  Really, really cold.  We had been looking forward to relaxing in the water, given that it was a hot, sunny day, but all that changed when our toes touched the laguna.  Ryan ended up getting in (briefly) and verified that you do, in fact, float more than in regular water.

Ryan floating in Laguna Cejar image

Ryan's the crazy one who floated in the freezing cold water

Then, we hopped back in our tour bus and headed nearby to Laguna Tebenquiche for sunset.  This place is really cool because you can get some incredible reflections of the volcanoes in the laguna – Ryan really liked this and took a lot of pictures.

Sunset at Laguna Tebenquiche image

Us at Laguna Tebenquiche

A nice touch by the tour company was that they brought along snacks and pisco sours – yum!  Some of our tour-mates skipped the sunset photo op and instead focused on taking pictures of themselves in various poses with the pisco sour bottle . . .

Verdict: This was a chill, relaxing afternoon activity – nothing spectacular (actually, the sunset was pretty incredible) but it was something fun to do close to town that didn’t mean being on a bus all day long.  One strange thing with this tour was that the guide didn’t speak English at all during the tour.  Not that he couldn’t speak English (he busted out some English with us later) but just that he didn’t bother asking if anyone on the tour wanted English.  With other tours we were on, the guides always said everything in both English and Spanish.  We didn’t say anything because we’d already heard enough about the volcanoes and lagoons on the other tours, but seemed strange to us that this was the approach.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche.

Day 4: Lagunas Altiplanicas

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP35,000/person (~US$70)

Time: Full day trip leaving San Pedro at 7am (~11 hours)

What we did: This was a day that involved a lot of sitting in the van, as many of the places we visited were really far away.  We started at the Laguna Chaxa, which is in the middle of a massive salt flat – actually the 3rd largest in the world (after Bolivia and apparently Utah – who knew?).  This was different than the salt flat we visited near Salta, Argentina, in that it’s an incredibly rugged landscape that looks more like rocks than the smooth white field we saw in Argentina.

Salar de Atacama image

Yep, that crinkly, rocky looking stuff is salt

The big attraction here for most people is the flamingos that hang out in the lagoon.  They were cool, but really, really far away – see?

Flamingos at Salar de Atacama image

Those are flamingos

Luckily, we have a really good zoom on our camera.

Flamingos up close image

They look just like the yard decorations in Florida!

We’d been to the (very good) zoo in Santiago the week before and seen flamingos from about 5 feet away, so we were less impressed than others in our group.

After breakfast at the first stop, we hopped in the van for a ~2 hour ride to 2 big lagoons at really high altitude.  They were kind of pretty but (in my opinion) not worth the hours in the car.  And, this was essentially just a photo stop – when we got there, we walked along a set path, then got back in the van.  Not exactly adventure travel.

Path at lagoon image

Please do not stray from the path

The stop that made this trip worthwhile, though, was at the Salar de Talar (Talar salt flat).  Apparently Cosmo Andino is the only tour company that goes there – we arrived and were the only sign of civilization anywhere around.  And this place was pretty incredible – the most spectacular thing we saw on the entire trip.

Salar de Talar image

It really looked like that - like somebody airbrushed an entire mountain

The colors that existed here were absolutely amazing.

Salar de Talar image

Seriously, you should check out our album - this place was incredible

We hopped out of the van and walked for a good 40 minutes along the edge of the lagoon – it was cold and windy but worth it because the view was so amazing. Check out our panoramic video and listen to the wind:

After the lagoons, we stopped in 2 small towns to walk around a bit.  The second one, Toconao, was really charming – enjoying sodas in the main square before heading back to San Pedro was a great end to the day.

Toconao plaza image

Such a cute town square!

Verdict: This tour was worth it for the special stop at Salar de Talar – this was one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever seen in nature.  After seeing it, we don’t understand why this isn’t the main attraction on the tour and the other tour companies don’t even go there at all.  Cosmo Andino was a little more expensive than other tour companies but totally worth it.  Also, our guide was great – Oscar was born of Chilean parents in London so speaks perfect English and Spanish . . . although we weren’t expecting the Cockney accent from a big Chilean dude, so took us a minute to adjust.  He was great and made the tour really relaxed and fun.

See the rest of the pics from our trip here: Lagunas Altiplanicas.

RESTAURANTS

La Estaka

This place is AH-MAZ-ING.  Better than pretty much anywhere we’ve eaten in Santiago.  It’s 2 long rooms (indoors, which is important during cold desert nights – some of the other places are outside), both with fireplaces that give it a cozy atmosphere.

La Estaka image

Cozy inside La Estaka when it's freezing outside

They usually play lounge music, and one night we were treated to an (actually very good) quartet playing traditional local music.  The food here is really, really good – over the 4 out of 5 nights of our trip that we ate here, we tried both salmons on the menu (one served with an incredible, cheesy quinoa risotto), the chicken curry and the steak.  There were some mix-ups in the service – on two separate nights, we tried to order the salmon with risotto and instead were served the other salmon.  Not quite sure how or why this happened, but the serving staff handled it really well and recovered nicely, comping us drinks to make up for it (we like drinks).  Aside than this, the service was fabulous – very attentive, very friendly and generally made us feel welcome.  By our last night there, the manager knew us, knew how we liked our salmon cooked and knew we’d want extra pebre with our bread (it’s so good!!!).  This place is on the more expensive end for San Pedro (mains CLP8,900/US$17), but well worth it in our opinion.

La Estaka outside image

We LOVE this place!!

Adobe

We think this place is owned by the same company as our beloved La Estaka.  They’re known for the fire pit they have in the middle of the dining area where people hang out at the end of their long day tours.  We had lunch here but avoided it for dinner – the fire pit is awesome, but it’s outside, and we were cold enough when we sat INSIDE!!  We had a salad and a pizza here, and both were good but not out of this world.

Blanco

What an embarrassment of a restaurant.  This is a swanky-looking place in all white right on the main drag.  It’s trying really hard to be sleek and modern, but just not getting it done.  We’re fine with basic food when we’re traveling, especially when we’re in the middle of a desert.  We just don’t like when a place pretends to be high end, charges really high prices, serves bad food and has a wait staff with an attitude.  Our waiter here was probably the worst we’ve ever had.  He completely forgot about our drinks and looked perturbed when we asked about them 15 minutes later, took our order wrong and then argued with us when we asked him to correct it when our food was delivered.  The chicken was raw in the middle and, when it came back from the kitchen the second time, was overdone and crunchy.  We came really close to walking out but ended up staying because we had a just-opened bottle of wine on the table.  It was this experience that sent us back to La Estaka for the remainder of our trip.

Tierra Todo Natural

We stopped in to this cool little open-air cafe for coffee (real espresso, not Nescafe) one afternoon and again for lunch another day.  The espresso was good, the sandwich I had for lunch was fresh but a little bland and the tacos Ryan had were really good.  We were a little confused by the taco menu at first (they have one that’s  a “guacamole taco” which consists of just a tortilla and guac . . . hmmm), but the meat tacos were really tasty, especially with cheese added.  Service is a little slow but friendly – we’d go back.

WHERE WE STAYED

San Pedro has a handful of really high-end places to stay (think US$300-600/night) and a bunch of simple hotels and hostals; we opted for the latter.  We made a reservation in advance to stay at the Takha Takha and then moved to the Hostal Katarpe after our first night.

Takha Takha Hotel

This is located right at the end of the main road running through town.  We arrived late at night and we happy that they had our reservation.  It was freezing, so we decided to upgrade to a room with heat, which cost CLP47,000 (~US$95).   The room was pretty, done in adobe.  But we were less-than-thrilled with the king bed (actually, 2 twins pushed together with a giant bump in the middle; could feel the individual springs when we laid down; one half of the bed (mine, lucky me) had a plastic potty guard mattress pad that crinkled any time we moved) and the bathroom that had 2 thin-as-paper closet doors.  The next morning, we saw that the compound was under construction and had building materials strewn everywhere – not that pretty.

Takha Takha image

The construction area was right outside our room

Also, no wifi – not a necessity, but nice to have.  For what we were getting, we thought the place was significantly overpriced, so we found another place the next morning and moved.

Hostal Katarpe

We found this place after wandering in to ~10 different hotels/hostals near the main street.

Hostal Katarpe image

See - isn't it cute?

At most of the places we checked, prices were pretty consistent, but this place was a great value!  Our room was set near the back of the property (quiet!!), was very simple and clean and HAD HEAT and wifi!!!  All this for CLP30,000/night (~US$60); note – we opted for the no-breakfast option for CLP5,000 less since so many of the tours leave first thing in the morning and include breakfast.  The place also has a central patio that was great for relaxing and taking in a bit of late-afternoon sun.  The woman who runs the place is very friendly and helpful, and we really enjoyed staying here!

Hostal Katarpe patio image

Ryan chilling at the patio after the crazy geyser tour

OVERALL

This was a great trip, and we’re so glad we were able to fit it in while we’re here.  It was really relaxing (other than the 4am geyser trip) and as different from Santiago as is possible.  We got a ton of amazing pictures (see them here), at least a few of them will end up framed on the wall (someday, when we have a wall to call our own again).  Yay travel!

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 1)

We decided to take a trip to get out of the Santiago smog for a few days and quickly decided on San Pedro because (1) it’s the only major attraction that’s to the north, and it’s still too cold to go south and (2) it’s really neat.  San Pedro is a small town in the middle of the Atacama desert in northern Chile, the driest desert in the world.  We learned while we were there that there are actually places in the desert where rain has never, ever fallen.  Whoa.

The desert is beautiful shades of pink and orange that go on forever with some really funky rock formations, lagoons, lots of volcanoes and a giant sand dune we got to run down (without having to walk up it first – key benefit to the tour we took; see below).  This was such a great, chill getaway from Santiago (our vacation from vacation from vacation), and we’re really glad we went.  We went for 5 days and had an awesome time, and here’s what we did that made it awesome.  This post covers our first two days there – details on our last 2 days coming soon!  (Note: Lots and lots of travel details below for those of you planning trips to San Pedro; for the rest of you, focus on the pictures.)

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

There are a ton of tour companies lining the streets of San Pedro, pretty much all of them offering trips to the same attractions.  We’d done some research beforehand and heard horror stories about a few of them (e.g., they’d cancel your trip then not give you your money back and just wait until your flight or bus left and there was nothing you could do about it) and noted a few that had consistently good reviews on Tripadvisor.  Our first morning there, we went around and talked to a few of them and booked our excursions for the next few days – some have discounts if you book multiple tours with them or pay in cash (but you have to ask; they’re not just going to offer it up).  Here’s what we decided to do:

Day 1: Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna

Tour company: Cactus

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: We did this tour our first afternoon in San Pedro.  It’s the closest to town and seems to be the most common tour – pretty much everybody does this one.  We received a recommendation to go with Cactus Tours because they’re a bit more active than the others, and we really liked this.  Our guide (Pablo) was really cool, made the trip fun and relaxed.  We first drove out to Valle de la Muerte and walked for ~40 minutes across the desert.

Hiking in Valle de la Muerte image

Pretty crazy landscape!

We ended up at the top of this massive sand dune where people were sandboarding.  We then had a lot of fun running down it.

Sand dune image

Those people had to walk up first - ha ha HA!!!

And the landscapes were amazing.  Besides the really cool sand dune, there were also these crazy pointy rocks – how did they get that way????

Valle de la Muerte view image

Crazy landscape (along with the obligatory volcano)

Then we headed over to Valle de la Luna (so named because the landscapes are so strange it feels like you’re on the moon) and saw another really big sand dune, along with the Three Marias, which are 3 natural rock columns that somebody thought looked like Maria.  Except that now there are only 2 – some tourist knocked one of them over.  We ended the afternoon watching sunset over the valley.

Valle de la Luna sunset image

Sunset in the desert is beautiful

Verdict: This was one of our favorite trips, for the combination of actually getting out and doing some walking (many trips involve sitting on a bus for hours and then getting out and taking pictures of things, then getting back on the bus), the great guide that we had and the beautiful sunset.  Not to mention that it didn’t involve getting up before the sun was up (you’ll see what I mean in a minute).

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Valle de la Luna photos.

Day 2: Geysers de Tatio and hot springs

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP25,000/person (~US$50)

Time: Brutally early morning trip leaving San Pedro at 4am (~8 hours)

What we did: This is a really popular tour in San Pedro, and most people would say it’s a can’t-miss, so we signed up and did it our second day in town.  First, we set our alarm for 3:45am and waited outside our hostal for the bus in the dark at 4am.  The drive up to the geysers takes about 1.5 hours, and we arrived while it was still dark.  The geysers are at 13,700 feet, so it’s REALLY cold up there.  We were bundled up in all the clothes we had (and some more we’d borrowed from friends in Santiago) and were still freezing.  And not just the “I’m uncomfortable” type of freezing; this was more of the “I can’t feel my hands and am somewhat concerned my toes may need to be amputated” type of freezing.  I grew up in Alaska and I’ve never been this cold.

Once we arrived, we had a cold breakfast and Nescafe outside the van as the pitch black was turning to morning dusk.

Breakfast at Tatio geysers image

Breakfast in the dark and freezing cold

Our guide then took us around and told us a bit about the geysers and then gave us some time to walk around on our own.  The geysers were kind of cool – lots of steam coming up from the ground, and one or two that would occasionally blow water up into the air.  But we couldn’t really figure out why we had to be there so early in the morning.  The explanation we got was that you couldn’t see the steam as well as it warmed up.  But to us, it seemed like the geysers looked just as cool (and maybe better) when we left around 8am (after the sun had finally come up).

Tatio geysers image

That's a fake smile (if you couldn't tell) - I was just pretending to have fun

We then drove out to a hot springs.  Cosmo Andino goes to a different hot springs than most of the other tours, so we were the only ones there.  It was basically a stream at the bottom of a hill filled with really warm water (actually boiling in some places – we didn’t go in to those places).  It was nice, but it was still very cold, so the idea of stripping down to our skivvies was less-than-enticing for us and we ended up only dipping our feet in.

Hot springs image

Pretty neat, but too cold to strip down

On our way back to San Pedro, we stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where our guide (Oscar) showed us a bunch of endangered cacti (including one that was ~200 years old!) and then led us to a hidden waterfall around the side of a hill.  It had finally warmed up, so we were able to enjoy the waterfall and a little bit of sunshine along with the waterfall.

Jen hugging cactus image

It turned out that hugging the cactus was a bad idea

Verdict: For me, this tour was not worth getting up at 4 in the morning and nearly freezing to death for; if we had it to do again, I would skip it (or at the very least hire a private guide who would take us a few hours later).  The geysers were ok, but we just can’t see why the 4am start is necessary.  And I was so uncomfortably cold for at least the first 4 hours of the tour that for me it wasn’t worth the pain.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Geysers de Tatio.

Day 2: Astronomy adventure

Tour company: Space Star Tours

Price: CLP15,000/person (~US$30)

Time: Evening trip leaving San Pedro at 8pm (~2.5 hours)

What we did: While we were there, we learned that the Atacama desert is one of the best places for astronomy in the world, due to the high altitude and 350+ clear days per year.  What’s going to be the largest observatory in the world (ALMA) is actually being built not far from San Pedro.  A group of astronomers have set up an outdoor observatory where they basically give a tour of the night sky.  We were picked up in town around 8pm and driven to the observatory, around 15 minutes away.  We started in a round room lit by a single candle with a glass ceiling so you could see the stars.  Our host for the evening, a Canadian astronomer (I think named Les) who lives in San Pedro, was incredible.  He started by giving us a basic introduction to astronomy (really interesting, not dry at all), where we learned for one thing that Pluto is no longer considered a planet – who knew?

Then we went outside, near the 10 massive telescopes they have set up essentially in the front yard.  Les had the coolest laser pointer we’ve ever seen – crazy green and looked like it was actually reaching all the way to the stars.  He used this to point out the Southern Cross, Milky Way, Venus (we saw planets!!), Mars (more planets!) and even Jupiter which could all easily be seen with the naked eye, all the while explaining really fascinating historical discoveries.  He then introduced us to what was on each of the telescopes, and then we had time to walk around and look in each of them.  We saw 4 of Jupiter’s moons!!!  And we saw a star formation that looks like a butterfly.  And lots of other cool things.  We ended the evening by heading back into the candlelit room for hot chocolate and Q&A with Les.  He was really fascinating to talk to, had very thoughtful and detailed answers for all the questions but also had a skill for making it easy to understand.

Atacama desert night sky image

Sadly our camera does not have a long enough exposure time to take good pictures of the stars... they were spectacular

Verdict: This was definitely our favorite “tour” of the trip.  It’s definitely different from the other tours that are offered, and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done.  I hadn’t expected seeing the stars and planets to be so interesting, but this was really a fabulous experience!!!  Our camera is not good at night, so check out the Space Star Tours website for cool photos and more info – this is a must-do trip if you are in the area.

To be continued . . .

See how much fun we had in San Pedro?  Be sure to check back for Part 2 tomorrow – including the coolest landscape we’ve ever seen!!

Update:  Part 2 is posted:  Trip Report:  San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)