Arequipa, a jewel set in the wide valleys of southern Peru Andean plateau, is known from the Peruvians as the white city. The drown tops of three volcanoes brush the city, the misti, the Chachani and Picchu Picchu in the Quechua language. In the basement at the Convent of Santa Catalina, in an eternal embrace, lies the mummy of Juanita, Inca ice maiden. Continue reading
On a fifty years old chevrolet car, we follow a faint-track in the direction of Putre. The wind whips the faces of the natives that are covered in a last attempt at defense. The link between earth and sky is in the cosmogony of the Andean peoples. On the andean highlands, there are several research centers that use large telescopes for the observation of celestial bodies: Panaral, Cerro Pachon, Las Campanans. In exceptional years, the rare rains return to wet lands of the arid Atacama desert, causing an explosion of nature. Continue reading
Arica is the northernmost seaport of Chile, a few kilometers from the border with Peru. The special climate of the Azapa valley allows the cultivation of various fruits, vegetables and palm trees and the famous Azapa olives. The Archaeological Museum of San Miguel Azapa tells the last 10000 years of history of this land, Tiwanaku dresses, Chinchorro mummies, rock art (petroglyphs). Continue reading
From Antofagasta all roads lead into the heart of the Atacama desert, a trip to a mysterious abyss. Pedro de Valdivia, Maria Elena, and then Quillagua. The red earth hides, together with the minerals, the countless bodies of those who have come here to die. The memory of these abuses spread the devotion to Saint Lawrence, considered by Chileans as the patron of the miners. Continue reading
The landscape, a few hours north of Santiago de Chile, slowly begins to change. There appear the first signs of the Atacama Desert, which occupies a huge part of the north of Chile. Chañaral is a town that lies on the Pacific coast where the border between the sea and the desert begins to be clear. Don Hugo has invented a system of sheets that trap moisture and cause it to condense into water. Father Hurtado, a well known Jesuit saint, a practical and hard worker man friend of working people and Chilean miners, watches over this underwater world. Continue reading
Santiago de Chile, a small hotel for travelers run by an indigenous Mapuche, skyscrapers and crumbling houses. Moscas and Don Ignacio. The city is alive and looks at arts and poetry. The urban murales are made of symbols and letters: the dove, hands, ears, the stars were a new language that has long been popular in the underground of the night. Continue reading
From the airplane window, a long prelude begins when breaking the monotonous blue line of the ocean appears the sensual green and gold shape of Brazil, an outpost of the South American continent. Santiago de Chile looks like a long strip that stretches from north to south, so varied and contradictory, alive and pulsating. Continue reading
Baños is a small city which rises in a flat piece of land, where the Andean valleys begin their tortuous descent towards the Amazon basin… we get there leaving the Pan-American highway near Ambato, city center of one of the … Continue reading
Exactly in front of the bridge which is the entrance gate to the city of Latacunga, a young boy tell us to go up on its rickety bus. It’s early in the morning, we begin the travel towards the covered … Continue reading
Medellin is the city of the Colombian social-economic supremacy, risen in the middle of nowhere and exploded under the protecting wing of the drug traffics. The utopian project of Pablo Escobar: a modern and efficient center, enclosed in a wonderful … Continue reading
