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Planning a Trip to Easter Island
Blog: The Silent I - 5 November 2009
If you're interested in visiting Easter Island aka Isla de Pascua aka Rapa Nui aka "The Navel of the World," be forewarned that it is far, far away from any main airport hub and it will take a while to...
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What does a taxi in Santiago say?
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 5 November 2009
Have you ever been unable to find an item in your house (keys, camera cable, that movie someone pressed into your hands promising you'd love it and you never watched it and now they want it back), only to rifle through your items like a B-grade detective and come across not the item in question, but the previous thing you'd given up for lost?
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Patagonia: Home of the Gods (Part II)
Blog: velvet escape's blog - 5 November 2009
This is the second part of a two-part series of an article from my Travel Journal. If you missed Part I yesterday, please click here to read about my trip to the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina. Patagonia: Home of the Gods (Part II) (A page from my Travel Journal) After a few days of total relaxation in [...]
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Patagonia: Home of the Gods (Part I)
Blog: velvet escape's blog - 4 November 2009
This is a two-part series of an article from my Travel Journal. Part II of this article will be published tomorrow. “Patagonia: Home of the Gods (Part I)” (A page from my Travel Journal) Patagonia. The name conjures images of impenetrable wilderness; rugged and daunting. The name Patagonia, given by Ferdinand Magellan, actually means ‘big feet’; it seems [...]
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Highlights of Latin America
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 1 November 2009
I had such an awesome time in Latin America it’s pretty hard to pick out favourite moments. But I’m going to give it a go anyway. Here are the best things I’ve seen and done over the past six and a half months, along with links to what I originally wrote about them. Favourite City: Valparaiso, [...]
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De compras con las chauchas! Coin-fueled fresh market foray in Santiago!
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 1 November 2009
Sunday. Day of relaxation, of rest, of work (what? just me?), of move it or lose it re: feria visits. My best closest fresh market is on Sundays, down in Barrio Yungay. For a list of the ferias in the city by comuna (district/neighborhood), don't miss this handy website put out by the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture. Unlike estoeschile, they don't even have an English translation, so you won't waste a bunch of your time clutching your sides at the slips of word.
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Chile Round-up & Budget
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 31 October 2009
Poor, underrated Chile. I didn’t meet a single backpacker in Latin America who reckoned Chile was their favourite country. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia…yes, frequently. Chile? Never. They always start with a couple of obvious negatives that I must admit I have trouble disagreeing too much with – first off, it’s expensive. Compared to the [...]
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Finally making it to Easter Island
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 30 October 2009
You’d have thought that after waiting a lifetime to visit Rapa Nui (the increasingly commonly used native name for Easter Island), an extra day of waiting wouldn’t matter all that much. But seeing as I only had three full days planned, being bumped from my flight by LAN meant missing a third of my time. [...]
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Valparaiso Graffiti & Street Art
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 29 October 2009
One of my favourite things about Valpo was the huge amount of fantastic graffiti and street art dotted around the walls of the city, which help make an already beautiful and colourful city even moreso. Here’s a selection of some of my favourites: You can see the full collection of my Valpo street art photos here Tagged: [...]
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Snow play
Blog: Felicity Sees... - 26 October 2009
My latest adventures are joined together with a common theme that seems to have surfaced lately, all having been concentrated in somewhat colder circumstances than those in the deserts of the North. Dropping from 15· to 40· south does make something of a difference to the temperature! Difference enough in fact for some snow to fall and provide some great opportunities for fun and adventure!First up: Skiing (Valle Nervado, Santiago)
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Gorgeous Valparaiso
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 25 October 2009
Much as I love the great outdoors, I’m a city boy at heart. And I’ve been to some fantastic cities so far – Mexico City, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Medellin, Lima, Mendoza & Cusco stand out – but Valparaiso (or Valpo for short) may just be my favourite yet. I do like a bit of faded seaside glamour, [...]
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Chile: the cartographers dilemma
Blog: Felicity Sees... - 22 October 2009
Chile can at times be a difficult country to get your orientation in thanks to the fact that all the maps of any useful detail in the guidbooks are split over several disconnetced pages, making locations of and distances between places difficult to asses.
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Valley of Camera Death
Blog: Itinerant Londoner - 22 October 2009
Unlike the transition between Peru & Bolivia, on entering Chile you could tell straight away you were in a very different country. For a start, the scenery changed dramatically – from the Bolivian Altiplano, to the Atacama desert. The town of San Pedro de Atacama, my first stop, is a dusty town of single story houses [...]
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Easter Island: Where to Play
Blog: The Silent I - 20 October 2009
February 2004 When traveling with kids to any destination, it's always good to know what kid-friendly activities there are for the time when you're not touring interesting landmarks or watching locals run around recreating ancient rituals. I think our son...
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Easter Island: Of Cannibals and Caves
Blog: The Silent I - 19 October 2009
February 7, 2004 After trekking up to the cliffside ruins of Orongo, China took us on a tour of caves that had been used by the ancient Rapa Nui for ceremonial purposes. One was down a steep, slippery path by...
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Wickertown, aka Chimbarongo Revealed
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 17 October 2009
So, after Abby and I took our famous detour to the little hamlet of Pelequén, whereupon we saw the lovely onion-domed church and marveled at our inability to get off the train at the right stop, we set to the task at hand, which was actually seeing Chimbarongo.
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Easter Island: The Birdmen of Orongo
Blog: The Silent I - 16 October 2009
February 7, 2004 On our third day in Easter Island, Chile, our fabulous tour guide, China picked us up at our hotel for a day exploring another aspect of Rapa Nui Culture: the Birdman competition. After seeing the modern-day version...
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Pelequén, or the town we never meant to visit. Getting happily lost in Chile
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 15 October 2009
For weeks, an idea has been brewing in my mind. And that idea can be summed up in one word: wickertown. Chile (or maybe all of Latin America) has a funny way of clumping together all the stores of the same kind and of nominating various towns as the birthplace or capital of a specific item. My store clump was to be wicker, and the capital of wicker in Chile, as everyone knows, is Chimbarongo.
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Shopping in Hanga Roa, Easter Island
Blog: The Silent I - 12 October 2009
This post is part of a retrospective on our trip to Easter Island for the Tapati Rapa Nui festival in February, 2004. After our day seeing moai in various states of completion and decay, we spent a few leisurely mornings...
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Easter Island: Tapati Rapa Nui Festival Lake Competition
Blog: The Silent I - 11 October 2009
This post is part of a retrospective series on our trip to Easter Island in 2004 for the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival. Note: some of the photos in this post are rated PG for partial nudity. February 5, 2004 In...
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The story I shouldn't tell, re: urine sample in Santiago. Medicine in Chile, always surprising.
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 9 October 2009
In which I tell the story of my first urine sample in Santiago. Just so you know what you're getting into.
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Easter Island: Moai on the Beach
Blog: The Silent I - 8 October 2009
February 5, 2004 After spending some time at the fallen moai site, our fabulous tour guide China drove us to Ahu Tongariki. This featured 15 stone moai of varying sizes and in various condition, all facing out to sea. This...
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Vamos al médico! Let's go to the doctor! Health care in Chile
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 7 October 2009
One of the questions that gets alot of play over on a board or two that I post on is health care in Chile. About which I can say, it is generally good. There are two systems of health insurance, public and private, FONASA and ISAPRE, respectively which I believe anyone can opt into, though the prices as an individual are higher than as part of a collective contract. I continued my health insurance from my previous employer when I went indie, and if you want to know how much that costs, email me, you know where.
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Easter Island: A Day at the Races
Blog: The Silent I - 7 October 2009
February 5, 2004 On our first day in Easter Island, we met up with China, our tour guide from Kia Koe Tours. Before she arrived, we complained to the Taha Tai Hotel staff about the broken air conditioner in our...
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Santiago Street Dogs, or how to decide whether or not to say yes to an offer for a guest blog post
Blog: Bearshapedsphere - 3 October 2009
Ah, complexity, and the formula of because I said so.Every now and then, somewhat less often than the frequency with which I receive spam comments regarding SEO, but more frequently than the advertisements for who knows what that come in the comments, I will get an email or a comment asking me to do a guest blog post.
