National Parks of Northern Chile

I am presently in Northern Chile, and I have spent the past two weeks working my way up here from Santiago, at the moment I am in San Pedro De Atacama. About 4 days ago I visited the National Park Nevado de 3 Cruces located near the Argentine border, high up in the Andes over 14,000ft. We visited the park and the surrounding area and spent 2 nights camping on the side of a saline lake called Laguna Verde at almost 15,000ft. The season for the park is over, it ended about 2 weeks ago, but while we were there we encountered 4 exploratory geologists! We arrived late in the evening and they invited us into the refugio that they were using to have coffee and snacks. They explained to me (in Spanish- my geological terminology in Spanish isn’t so good) that there is a volcanic formation under the lake that is leeching titanium into the water, so it’s dissolved in this freezing salty lake. I assumed they were their checking things out on land, but I got the full idea of their field work the next morning when they suited up in full dry suits and got in a tiny motor boat! They were diving for water samples in a lake 4 times saltier than the Mediterranean (this required lots of belt weights), and the water temp because of all the salt is below freezing (-2-3deg C), the air temp wasn’t so warm either! I think the only thing that made their diving bearable were the hot springs located on the edge of the lake!

Near the lake is the highest active Volcano in the world, (Ojos del Slado) and the tallest peak in Chile (only 70m shorter than Aconcagua) we hiked part of the way up to 18,000ft. After we left the park we headed back to the coast to another national park Pan de Azucar, where I saw Penguins in the desert!! They live on an island that is covered with cactus. I never thought I would see a penguin and a cactus in the same place, but Chile is full of surprises.

I have never seen so many mines in my entire life, Northern Chile is one massive mining complex. I saw a monitoring well at 16,000ft in the middle of the desert. It seemed funny to me because it is one of the driest places on earth and no one has to de-water their pits here b/c there is no water. I also met a hydrogeologist in the Park he was from Canada working for Golder, he was looking for water so they could being operating a new mine- but he wasn’t finding any. He informed me that AMEC is their biggest competitor here and that seemed to be true, I saw a few AMEC trucks driving around.

I have toured an old nitrate mining ghost town, from the 1920, and visited an abandoned copper smelter from the 30s. At the moment I am really close to a massive copper mine that was formerly run be Anaconda Copper CO (people here actually know that Montana is a state b/c of this), it’s about 3x the size of the Berkley pit!

I am heading into Bolivia on Thursday, to continue my journey north.


The fishing boat that we hired to take us to "sugar loaf island" to view the penguinos!


The endangered Humbolt Penguin!


Pan de Azucar Natl. Park


me in the spring


Hot spring by Laguna Verde


Our geologist friends


Base camp of Ojos del Salado, 5,200m base camp, where we began our hike.


Geologists out in their boat on Laguna Verde


Beched boat in a dried up section of Laguna Negra


Guanacos


Refugio at Laguna Santa Rosa in Nevado de Tres Cruces Natl. Park


Flamingos in Laguna Santa Rosa

Valley Del Elique and north!

I spent 2 days in La Serena before meeting back up with Phillip (the german fellow I met in Santiago). On Saturday we headed up the Valley Del Elique to the towns of Vicuna and Pisco Elique. We visited a Piso distillery and saw lots and lots of grape vines growning Pisco. The vally is famous for prosucing Pisco (traditional liquor of Peru and Chile), and also for observatorys. The sky is very clear with few clouds so the hills are scattered with observtorys both big and small. We headed up to Maraculla Observatory at 10:30, we spent 2 hrs up there looking through various sizes of telescopes and we learned some constillations (in the southern hemisphere). Yesterday we headed up the Pan-American highway (ruta 5) up north to the small National Park ...... where we camped along the beach. We then headed further up north through the desert, stopping at an abdoned mine smelter to snap some photos. We saw more wild Vicuna, and are presently in the funky mining town of Copiapo. We are headed out to Tres Crucez National Park for the next 4-5 days, it's supposed to be amazing and thanks to my new friend I actually get to see it because you can only access it in a 4x4.


Abandoned mine smelter in the middle of the dessert.




Northern Chile is dry... and barren.


This is where Pisco comes from...


Swan in the Japonese garden in La Serena

Valporiso... and beyond

The horse track


One of the amazing horses at the races... this guy won.




An asensor track


The view from an asensor... one of the many ancient elevators that are still used all over the city.


Museo cielo abierto... aka open sky museam, feel free to do whatever artistic endeavor that you like in this large space.


I think banksy was here... this one is for you cori
















Horse and dog parked by the side of the highway


Bus art


A deteriorating buldigng...

Valporiso is one of the most incredible cities that I have ever been to.
It is incredibly beautiful and unique, it seems like San Fransisco, New Orleans and parts of Lima got smashed together to crate a wonderful steep portside town, and to top it off and make it even more amazing... the entire city is covered with some of the most amazing street art that I have ever seen, it's everywhere!!! (Cori-little sister if you ever come here you may never leave!)
My first 2 days were spent walking arround the town taking photos... lots and lots of photos. On the seccond day I met a lovely German gal. We went to the most incredible resturaunt where we enjoyed a great bottle of wine, Lobster rissoto and ginger crembrule, ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. If anyone is planning on visitng; Uriola 383, Epicurian is highly reccomended!
On my 3rd day (yesterday) a large ggroup of people staying in the same hostel as me decided to go to Vina Del Mar, so I went with them. 3 Canadian fellows, 1 Polish gal, my new German friend and I all boarded the metro train toghether. We had planned to go to the Fonuk Museam but it was closed from earthquake damage. So we had a nice seafood lunch overlooking the sea and then we headed to the local sporting club where we spent the afternoon at THE HORSE RACES!!!! It was really fun, the track was really nice and everyone won $, except for me (i lost 6 dollars- oh well).
I spent all day today on a bus, and I am presently in La Serena.
Happy April Fools day... and Happy Birthday to my Mommy! It's turning into fall here so I hope everyone up north is enjoying spring.

Heading North...

I am in Santiago at the moment, I have been here staying in a great hostel for the past few days. I havn't really done much, other then attempthing to figure out what I am going to do for the next 2.5 months.
Tentative plan:
I have decided that I am going to start moving north slowly, first heading up the Cilean coast and then into Boliva, fallowed by Peru. Hopefully in about 5 weeks I will be in Banos Equador. There I am going to do a homestay for 3 weeks and study spanish everyday (except weekends)!

Yesterday I ventured outside to get away from the lazy internet routene that I had fallen into. I went for a big hike with 2 german fellows and a crazy gal from england. We headed up Cerro Provencia on the outskirts of Santiago. It was hot, really hot, it was steep and we were breathing the lovely brown smoggy air that fills the valley here. Needless to say, after 4 hours of steep up I decided I didn't want to go to the top and that I would go back and sit in the shade (the boys who did go to the top, told us we made a good decision uppon their return). Despite the heat, we did get a good veiw of Santiago (on a realativly low smog day) and the big mountains to the east. This afternoon I head to Valporiso for a few days, to explore...







Photos:
Philip (german fellow) trying to decipher a very bad map, of Cerro Provencia.

The very dry landscape of Santiago's foothill's... cactuses everywhere, I felt like I was in Arizona.

Santiago

More Rapa Nui!

The 7 sailors, the only Moai statues on the island that are oriented out to sea. All the rest face inland.


Rno Raraku, the quarry where the Moai were made.


The Moai on Anakena Beach


Anakena Beach


A ruin near the sea, the island was first discovered and settled in 500 AD.


Tongeriki from afar with people and wild horses.


Detail.


The very impressive Tongariki.


Part of Tongariki (the whole thing is 15 upright statues) with a person infront to give some perspective on their size... They are big! The tallest one is 20 meters.


Moai face, with Rno Raraku, the quarry where it was made in the background.


A fallen Moai, with a wild pony in the background. There where wild horses all over the island... Tons of them, in the soccer fields, on the main street, everywhere! Many of the just had babbies too.