Chile

[sputnik]

as some of you know, i've been living in chile for the last year and a half or so, and it really is a beautiful country. i thought i'd start a thread and share my pictures of the different places i've visited. it's such a diverse place - the north is all desert, the south is forests, lakes and fjords, volcanoes and then of course the beautiful, majestic andes from north to south... the people are just as diverse - from blonde descendants of german settlers to mapuche indians and everything in between. it really is a gorgeous country. so far i've been up north and halfway down south and i live in santiago which is in the middle.

so, to start, a little bit of santiago:

bellavista neighbourhood and cool street art:




awesome chickenwire art in the courtyard of the architecture school:


view from las condes (east of the city) on clear days when you can see the mountains:



parque forestal/lastarria area downtown:


more street art. i love how someone randomly decided to put kafka on a wall:



the subway (clean, safe and super efficient):

[Beeyotch]

Wow, those are really great pictures, you're a good photographer. The subjects are fascinating too, I love taking pics of funky street art I find. The chicken wire art is something else, I love it.

And what a view of those mountains! So beautiful. Kind of puts the scrubby hills near me to shame. I grew up mostly in flat open areas with no topography and now that I've recently lived in places with hills and mountains always in the background, I couldn't imagine not seeing them there everyday, I'd feel like something is missing. It really adds texture to the background of life.

[sputnik]

thanks, beeyotch. i love funky street art too, and yes, the chickenwire sculptures are awesome. i keep meaning to go back with my proper camera to take good pictures of them since the day i was there was for a meeting and i only had my phone with me.
and yeah, those mountains! unfortunately there's also a lot of smog in winter (santiago's in a valley and there isn't much wind in winter so the air gets trapped in a bowl until it rains and gets cleaned out) but on those clear days when you feel like those ginormous mountains are so close they're going to fall on you, it's worth it.

[sputnik]

atacama desert:
this is way up in the north of the country, near the bolivian border. it's the driest desert on earth and just an incredible place. it's way up in the mountains - san pedro de atacama, the town we stayed in, is at 2500m (7900 feet) and from there it's just up, up, up because all the places you visit are between that and all the way up to 5000m (16400 feet) so you basically have to drink coca tea all day to prevent getting altitude sickness.
i cannot describe how amazing this place is. it has everything from salt flats to desert to incredible green valleys and rock formations, rivers, geysers, altiplano lagoons at nearly 16000 feet, and everything from llamas to vicuñas, andean ostriches, foxes, and fucking weird plants. the weather changes too. on the same day, you can go from -16°C at 5 in the morning at the geysers, to 30°C in san pedro during the day, and then back down to zub zero temperatures at night. it's like being on another planet. i was there for a week and the whole time i felt like i was tripping on acid.

valle de la luna + valle de la muerte:



this part is awesome because you get to run/slide down the sand which is all soft and cool. a lot of people go sandboarding in that valley.



everything is salty! all these crusty white rocks are full of salt crystals and the white you see in the distance isn't snow, it's salt flats.

[sputnik]

more atacama.

geysers and valley:

the geysers are burning hot but they are in such a cold place that there is snow and ice on the ground too and the extremes in temperature cause all the steam. it's like being in a giant, freezing sauna.



the stream in the valley is a thermal spring with hot water. it was really cold outside but the water is hot so you can strip down and have a warm bath. it sucks when you get out of the water though and back into the cold.


cactus with fake boobies, and llamas!!:

[Beeyotch]

These are my favorites



and a good ass-shot, of course



J/k I like all the chickenwire ones, they look like they're floating and dancing on air.

Do you ever blow up and frame pics like these, or maybe do a series of small framed prints for your apt? We've done that with a couple of cool pictures and really like them. [Is it tacky to frame and display your own pics as art in your apt? ]

*wow, I posted before I saw all the other shots of the desert and stuff. Nice. I'd frame all of those!

[sputnik]

unfortunately the chickenwire pics are phone pics so they're small and shitty and can't blow them up to a decent size.
the rest of them are high quality so could definitely be blown up, i took most with my old panasonic which was a 'bridge' or high-end compact so it took decent pictures and had a good manual mode.
the most recent pics (about half of the santiago ones) i took with my new slr camera.
and yes, i've framed some of my own pictures. i don't think it's tacky at all. i framed some black and white pics i took in bologna with some black and whites from chillan down south in chile, put them all in little frames and made a wall of pics in the dining room.
i also framed a series of seaside pics for my bedroom.

[CherryDarling]

sput, thank you for sharing your pics. My jaw is on the floor after viewing them, the nature shots are out of this world. I never really knew Chile was such a diverse country climate-wise--so beautiful and awesome!

Sandboarding, I never knew that was even possible! How cool is that...

You must have quite the collection of stories from all of your travelling adventures.

[sputnik]

^^^
thanks cherry! my dream is to win the lottery and travel for a living.

more atacama:

tara desert and atacama salar:




vicuñas. so cute!



more cute vicuñas:



salar de atacama:





llamas:

[Beeyotch]

unfortunately the chickenwire pics are phone pics so they're small and shitty and can't blow them up to a decent size.
the rest of them are high quality so could definitely be blown up, i took most with my old panasonic which was a 'bridge' or high-end compact so it took decent pictures and had a good manual mode.
the most recent pics (about half of the santiago ones) i took with my new slr camera.
and yes, i've framed some of my own pictures. i don't think it's tacky at all. i framed some black and white pics i took in bologna with some black and whites from chillan down south in chile, put them all in little frames and made a wall of pics in the dining room.
i also framed a series of seaside pics for my bedroom.

Good, so I'm not the only one. Makes me feel less self-indulgent.

[Grimmlok]

Don't they use the Chilean desert to simulate moon and mars-like conditions for testing out probes, robots, and vehicles? I thought I saw that somewhere.

it's the driest place on earth or something.

[sputnik]

crusty salt marshes, flamingos and altiplano lagoons:

and here i thought flamingos only lived in tropical weather. guess not.





andean ostrich (darwin's rhea):


altiplano lagoons. these are so high up the only thing that grows is that weird green shrub which is so hardy they even use it to make roofs.




valley:



san pedro de atacama:
we were there on some saint's day so there was a parade in the village, outside the (very rustic) church.



the region also has some of the clearest skies in the world so it's full of observatories. you can take night tours and take pics of planets and the moon through telescopes:

[sputnik]

Don't they use the Chilean desert to simulate moon and mars-like conditions for testing out probes, robots, and vehicles? I thought I saw that somewhere.

it's the driest place on earth or something.

yup. atacama is the driest desert on earth, and i think they're building some kind of massive telescope here right now as well, i think the strongest in the world or something like that.

[Sarzy]

Great pics, Sputnik. It looks an interesting place.

[CherryDarling]

I wanna give this little fella a huge hug and kiss! Too cute.