Atacama: A Vacation within a vacation within a vacation

First…

we packed up our apartment in San Francisco, put most of our stuff in storage and went to Buenos Aires.

Then…

after ~4 months we left a couple of bags with a friend in Buenos Aires and went to Santiago.

Then…

after ~1 month we left a couple of bags with friends in Santiago and headed up to San Pedro de Atacama. We’ll be here for ~5 days.

Like a dream within a dream within a dream…

this is a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. We can only hope that the ‘kicks’ are timed correctly and we will be able to return to Santiago and then Buenos Aires and then the US with all of our things and ourselves intact.   If anything goes wrong we could become lost in vacation limbo forever. Obviously, this would be horrible.

We have to be careful.

We can only hope that our subconscious doesn’t create evil projections that are able to catch us and throw us out of our vacation early. To avoid them we will have to choose a new and exotic destination every day. We will go to crazy places like the Valle de la Luna, Los Geysers del Tatio, Las Lagunas Altiplanicos and others. If things get desperate, we may even go so far as to go sandboarding in the desert and/or cross the somewhat unpredictable and recently unstable border into Bolivia. Hopefully these crazy environments and activities will be enough to confuse our subconscious and keep us safe.

Time moves much slower here than in reality.

Because we have total freedom to choose what we want to do in each moment, every day spent in a normal vacation is worth 10 days of life at home (just add up how many hours you spend enjoying what you want to do vs. doing what you are supposed to do in a normal 10 day period in reality and you’ll see what I mean). Many theorize that this time distortion compounds with each additional layer of vacation abstraction–each day on a second level vacation is worth 100 days of enjoyment in your normal life; each day on a third level, 1,000. We’ll be here for ~5 days on this third level vacation which means that for us it will be the equivalent of 5,000 days worth of normal life enjoyment. You will hardly realize that we were gone, but for us, we will have experienced ~14 years of enjoyment here in the arid high-altitude desert of Atacama. If, upon reading this, you are now depressed by how little you enjoy your normal life, consider joining us–there is still room on our afternoon tour.

Unfortunately we do not have any spinny tops.

When we return… if we return… we will have no way of knowing whether or not we are back in reality or are in yet another layer of vacation. It’s entirely possible that we will spend the rest of our lives unsure whether we are on vacation or not. We are okay with this. If we do end up in vacation limbo, please consider joining us, but under no circumstances should you attempt to rescue us.

By the way…

If the last 6 months have just been a dream and rather than traveling in South America we’ve actually just been sleeping in a conference room using our laptops as pillows while making slides for a big presentation tomorrow… Please don’t wake us up; we will be cranky.

p.s. If you haven’t seen the movie “Inception” go see it. Then this will make (at least some) sense.

Beaches and mountains and wineries, oh my!: More reasons why Santiago rocks

While Santiago is a great city in and of itself, possibly its most compelling feature is its proximity to an amazing variety of incredible day-trips, ranging from beaches to wineries to mountains and more.  This is a tale of some of those day-trips.

Context

I thoroughly enjoyed writing about career related topics (e.g., Career Option-value) and will absolutely be writing a lot more involving evil mongeese in the near future, but I didn’t want to go too long without offering a little travel-related inspiration…

We’ve been in Santiago, Chile for a couple of weeks now and we continue to like it more and more (see our original post on Santiago).  So much so in fact that we are now seriously considering getting jobs and living here for the foreseeable future.  Anyone have any good leads?  🙂

We may sound crazy.  You may be wondering why we would consider living so far away from home.  There are many reasons.  In this post, I’ll discuss 3 of them: beaches, mountains and wineries.  Oh my.

Santiago day trip 1: Beaches

About a week ago we made plans with some friends to go skiing in some of the gigantic mountains hovering just outside/over the city.  We headed over to their house at around 9am to meet up.  When we got there, they told us that they had heard the weather was rough and it might be snowing too hard in the mountains for skiing to be much fun.  We are fair weather skiers, so skipping the slopes for the day was fine with us.  After some discussion about possible alternate destinations, we decided to drive to the coast for the day.  It was drizzling for most of the ~1 hour drive, so initially we weren’t all that optimistic about the beach.  We were in for a surprise.

We started at Isla Negra, which is a small beach town a bit south of Valparaiso and the site of one of Pablo Neruda’s houses (he’s kind of a big deal here).  The tour of the house was very worthwhile (this guy collected all kinds of crazy stuff, including a narwhal tusk!).  Beyond the house, the beach was fantastic which was helped by the fact that the rain stopped..

Isla Negra beach image

This was Pablo Neruda's backyard. I wish it were my backyard.

After our tour, we decided to drive a bit further up the coast to Viña del Mar.  Viña is a popular beach destination for a good reason.

Viña del Mar coastline image

It's always a beautiful day in Viña del Mar

The weather was significantly better at Viña.  We had an awesome lunch on an outdoor patio (keep in mind that it’s the dead of winter here) and then took to the beach…

Viña del Mar beach image

Everyone out enjoying this beautiful winter day

Also, there were some very cool sand sculptures.

Viña del Mar beach sand sculpture image

Such as this crazy dragon thing

We got some ice cream, hung out on the beach for a few hours and eventually headed back to the city.

Let’s recap:

  1. We woke up in the morning ready to go skiing.
  2. We determined that it was snowing too hard to go skiing
  3. Rather than driving an hour east for skiing, we drove an hour west to the coast
  4. We spent the day enjoying a sunny, warm and beautiful day at the beach and eating ice cream (because it was snowing too hard to ski).

Does this seem strange to anyone?  Is this sequence of events possible anywhere else in the world?  If so, let us know!  If not, join us in basking in the awesomeness that is Chile.

Santiago day trip 2: Mountains

This weekend it wasn’t snowing too hard.  With our friends at the wheel, we managed to make the ~1 hour drive east (though ‘up’ is the more accurate direction) and hit the slopes at Valle Nevado.  It was our first time skiing in the Andes and it was unlike any skiing we had ever done before (in a good way).

Valle Nevado ski lodge image

This is the lodge down at the base (yep, that's the bottom...)

Aside from the incredible views and massive amounts of snow in every direction, there is something quite unique about skiing in the Andes…

Valle Nevado slopes images

Hmmm... what's missing from this picture?

Trees.  There are no trees.  I’ve never skied without trees before.  They pretend that there are separate runs, but really it’s more of a free-for-all where you can pretty much go anywhere–there is nothing but snow and mountains for miles and miles and miles.  At the lodge, you can conveniently pay for a helicopter to drop you off further out if you’re crazy (we saw it go back and forth more than a few times), or some people apparently take a lift up and just head off in a different direction and have a friend pick them up near the side of the road somewhere down the mountain (or just hitchhike from there).

I’ve skied all over the US, but I’ve never seen this much fresh powder–certainly none that is this light and fluffy.  Also, it doesn’t get that cold (rarely below freezing) and apparently the day we were there was the most crowded our friends have ever seen it–sometimes we waited in lift lines for up to 2 minutes.

Valle Nevado lift image

This is the 'most' crowded it's ever been...

And another thing…

Echaurren glacier at the top of Valle Nevada image

At the top of one of the lifts you get an incredible view of the Echaurren glacier (top left) which is hanging out at around 17k feet

If glaciers aren’t your thing, there are also some spectacular views of the city way down below.

Santiago view from Valle Nevada image

That's Santiago city down there in that valley. If you look closely you can see the buildings... completely surrounded by mountains

Not only that, but the drive home offered some pretty spectacular sunset views.

Sunset on road to Santiago from the Andes image

Sunsets in Chile do not mess around

Let’s recap:

  1. 1 – 1.5 hour drive from city
  2. Amazing powder skiing, wide-open runs, not crowded, warm
  3. Incredible glacier views
  4. Incredible city views
  5. Incredible sunset
  6. If we were feeling lazy, we could have gone to the beach instead

Convinced yet?  If you still don’t agree with us that Chile is awesome, that’s fine.  There’s plenty more…

Santiago day trip 3: Wineries

On another day, with some other friends (people are friendly here), we headed north to the small town of Los Andes.  It’s about an hour, maybe 1.5 hours north, nestled in between the Andes and the Coastal Range (more mountains) and more or less surrounded by the vineyards of the Aconcagua Valley (you have to be specific because there are like 7 wine valleys within an hour or so of the city).

Los Andes, Chile vineyard image

The views were ok

Frankly, there wasn’t really any need to have a particular destination in mind, you can basically just start driving and stare in awe out the window at the amazing scenery beyond every turn.

We had been pretty fixated by the Andes, but we learned about a whole new mountain range on this trip.

Coastal range from Los Andes image

Those are part of the Coastal Range. Also awesome.

We stopped at one point and did a little hiking through vineyards to get to the top of a hill (which happened to be the site of some very interesting petroglyphs).

Los Andes winery and mountains image

This is what we saw

After we managed to tear ourselves away from these incredible views (and of course buy as many bottles of wine as we could carry after some wine tasting) we headed to our friends’ favorite lunch destination in the area…

Los Andes lunch spot image

Decent place to have lunch -- try the drunken chicken

As if the above wasn’t enough, we also were treated to a brief performance by these guys:

Huasos image

Huasos - Like guachos, but Chilean

Once again, let’s recap:

  1. 1 hour drive
  2. Spectacular scenery along the way
  3. Not one, but 2 mountain ranges (Coastal Range and Andes)
  4. Cool wineries that make great wine in unbelievable settings
  5. Drunken chicken for lunch
  6. Chilean cowboys

What more could you want?

In Summary

We used to live in San Francisco.  San Francisco is known for having lots of incredible day trips you can do near the city.  While we are big fans of San Francisco, the day trip possibilities around Santiago make San Francisco day trips look a little silly (in diversity, intensity and proximity).  We’ve only just begun exploring this city/country and so far we are blown away.

Where else can you do all of this and more so close to a major city?  Why doesn’t everyone live here??  🙂

Check out more photos in our gallery:

Beach day photos

Ski day photos

Winery day photos

A graffiti photo-tour of Valparaiso, Chile

There is graffiti everywhere in the coastal Chilean town of Valparaiso and it is incredible. It’s always changing, but below are some of our favorites from July of 2010 (click on one for a slide show with larger images)

Valparaiso, Chile Graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

Valparaiso, Chile graffiti image

graffiti tour of Valparaiso, Chile image

graffiti tour of Valparaiso, Chile image

Pretty crazy isn’t it?  Even more in our Valparaiso graffiti photo gallery

Graffiti–art or vandalism?  Please discuss…

The Buenos Aires City Zoo is full of surprises

Either they have been doing some extreme experiments in genetic engineering down here, or South American animals are just very different.  To be fair, the zoo did not seem all that well maintained, so it’s very possible that the animals are escaping frequently and doing some of their own ‘genetic engineering’ if you know what I mean.

In reality, there are at least 2 reasons why this zoo is worth checking out:

1)  The crazy, crazy animals

2)  The fact that many of the crazy, crazy animals roam free throughout the grounds rather than being confined to a cage

Let’s start with a few of the crazy animals (which also happen to be roaming free):

Exhibit A:  Duck + Turkey = Durkey?

Buenos Aires Zoo Turkey/Duck Image

Duck? Turkey? Durkey?? And no, this is not a one-off weird looking duck, there are tons of these running around and they all look the same

Exhibit B:  Beaver/Gopher/Hedgehog = BeapherHog?

Giant Hedgehog thing image

This is kind of like a giant hedgehog...

Buenos Aires City Zoo Gopher thing image

...except that it has webbed feet in the back, bright orange teeth and an attitude.

Exhibit C:  Our personal favorite, the Rabbit/Deer = Dabbit?

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Rabbit/Deer Image

What are you???

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Rabbit/Deer 2 image

They are decently big and they run free all over the zoo. They seem a little skittish, but friendly. And very, very weird.

The above three animals (Durkeys, BeapherHogs and Dabbits) are all over the zoo, just kind of hanging out.   Other animal hybrid creations apparently are less friendly and need to be kept in cages.  For instance…

Exhibit D:  The Tapir

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Tapir Image

Tapir = cross between anteater and wild boar? He looks sad--it might be because he's so weird looking.

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Tapir 2 Image

Seriously, what are you???

Exhibit E:  These guys

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Weird guys Image

No idea... kind of like the rabbit/deer things crossed with the giant hedgehog things. You may recognize the guy in the front as the actor that played Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia movie

Exhibit F:  Anteater thing

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Anteater thing Image

I think you are an anteater, but I have no idea. What I do know is that you could very easily wear a traffic cone as a helmet.

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Anteater thing 2 Image

Nice piece of tail

Exhibit G:  Satan goat

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Satan goat image

Do not mess with this goat, it will haunt your dreams

Exhibit H:  These guys

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Baboon things Image

And on the seventh day, god had some extra spray paint to get rid of...

In addition to having animals that you’re unlikely to have ever seen before, there are some animals that would be normal-ish except that they seem to have gone a bit crazy.  For example:

Exhibit I:  Smiling Llama

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Smiling Llama Image

He has lots of personality...

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Smiling Llama 2 Image

...or possibly is just unable to close his mouth due his abnormally large lower teeth

Exhibit J:  Flaccid Camel

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Flaccid Camel Image

I swear, this has never happened before...

Exhibit K:  Acro Elephant

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Elephant Image

Hard to capture in a photo, but this elephant attempted to perform a head stand for a good 3 minutes. He almost fell down a few times. Then he started running around his pen erratically (often backwards). Could have had to do with the roaring lion that was next door, or he is just crazy.

There were lots of other more normal animals as well of course like lions and tigers and birds and stuff.  You can check out the rest of our photos in our photo gallery:  Buenos Aires City Zoo Photos

Just because the lemurs and the baby hippo were particularly entertaining we took a couple of videos:
Lemur fight:

Hippo teeth:

Logistics

The Buenos Aires City Zoo is located in Palermo right next to the Botanical Garden–The main entrance is right next to Plaza Italia and it costs AR$15/ticket for a general entrance or a little more if you want to go into the special attractions (which didn’t seem to be worth it).  It’s fully outdoors, so probably not fun in the rain.

Also, they have a pretty crazy website with more info, lots of pics/videos and annoying music:  http://www.zoobuenosaires.com.ar/index.php

Verdict

It’s cheap, it’s centrally located and it has most of the craziest animals we’ve ever seen.  It’s always a bit depressing to see caged animals and some of these animals looked pretty unhappy, but overall we enjoyed the zoo far more than we thought we would.  It shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do on a short vacation here, but it’s a fun way to spend a few hours and we’d highly recommend it.

Anyone out there have any idea what some of those animals are?