There are 498 blog posts for you to enjoy.
Mendoza, Argentina
November 22, 2024
I arrived in Mendoza, Argentina last Sunday afternoon, it was sunny and warm, and felt like an early summer day back in Seattle. As I walked from the bus terminal through the city center to the main plaza and across town to the apartment I rented for a few days, the first thing I noticed was how clean the city is. I mean the amount of litter could probably be counted on my two hands. And that was over a course of some 3-4 kilometers. Also, the city streets, downtown and in the suburbs, are lined on both sides by large mature trees, it's beautiful. This city impresses right from the get-go. The Plaza Independencia is a beautiful park, clean and well-kept, people sitting under the trees all throughout the park. I'm looking forward to spending four or five days here. The one thing that comes to mind that is a negative point for me is the climate. According to the stats it gets rather cold here in the winter. But for now, I'm going to enjoy a few days of very pleasant warmth in a pretty city.
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Santiago, Chile
November 16, 2024
My visit to Santiago de Chile, Chile, got off on a sour note. Why? Because of Booking.com, or possibly more because of the manager/owner of an apartment I rented on Booking.com. Either way, neither of them responded to my support requests. On Booking I got a reservation confirmation, all good, great, I had an apartment for the price of a hotel room. But, the manager/owner never contacted me with the requisite info for obtaining the key(s). I contacted Booking support and they responded with the expected cut-n-paste auto-reply "We'll contact you within 24 hours". Sure they will, I thought. And guess what? They sent me the same auto-reply 24 hours later, by then the apartment reservation time was long gone and I spent the night in a hotel anyway.
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Copiapó, Chile
November 10, 2024
I arrived in Copiapó around 9pm and walked across town to a hostal I found on Google Maps - Hostal Plaza Carrera. At the hostal, the woman who answered the door immediately asked, "Did you talk to the owner?" I said no, explained I found the hostal on the map. She was obviously not happy. She called the owner, and a few minutes later gave me a room. As she wrote my details into her log book she was still unhappy. Maybe she had a bad day, I don't know, but she wasn't the most pleasant person to have greeting customers.
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Antofagasta, Chile
November 7, 2024
This was my first visit to Antofagasta. This small city of around 400,000 people, is a coastal city with some beaches and a lot of rocky coast. And the waves can get quite high. Apparently the beaches just south of town host some of the championship surfing competitions. Another note about the beaches here - they are all artificial, man-made. There are no natural beaches in Antofagasta.
The climate is pleasant, not hot by any means, but warm enough most afternoons for a t-shirt or light shirt and pretty much always long pants. At least during the summer months of November through January. The city is quite modern yet has many late-19th/early twentieth century buildings and houses. The amount of rain received here is miniscule - about 4.4 millimeters over the course of the year. Temperatures range from mid-high 50s in the winter months of June-July, and low 70s in the summer and spring months of December-March. It's said that Antofagasta is the world's driest city.
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Remembering Tocopilla, Chile
October 29, 2024
In the process of renaming and compressing all the photos in my photo album, I'm also revisiting the many places Ivisited, this blog is about one of those places.
At the end of March, 2023, I visied Tocopilla, Chile. While I was there exploring the town I came across aninteresting church. What was interesting about it? Well, first, Tocopilla is on the northern coast of Chile which isall Atacama Desert. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on earth. There are no trees here other than theones people have planted. And the church I came across is made of wood, all wood. The church is called "The Temple ofOur Lady del Carmen".
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