Calbuco before and after the eruption

We are lucky that every now and then we can leave our home office behind for some field work, and last weekend we had lined up such a trip to the Los Lagos region, about 1000km south of Santiago. The work involved taking a bunch of photos from a set of specific locations, one happened to be inside Lake Llanquihue.

The Atacama Desert in Bloom - Desierto Florido 2015

This year has been unusual, weather-wise. A very strong El Niño seems to be breaking havoc in more than one way.

The snow has arrived

This year is supposed to be an "El Niño" year, which normally means increased amounts of rainfall across the South American Pacific coast. Except this El Niño event seems to be a bit unusual, we´ve had hardly any rain at all in Central Chile, thus far.

Chloe and Knut - A happy ending and a short update

Feels like a little update on what has happened since our last blog post is in order. To start with, we are happy to announce that our temporarily adopted dogs (Chloe and Knut) found two good new homes in Santiago.

The dogs of Santiago

That Santiago has a dog problem is not really a secret. Nor is it the first time that we are writing on this. Remember the stories of Mario,  Coffee or Margarita? Many locals don’t know that it is a problem, or play it down or try not to think about it. But then I guess many folks from over here simply haven't enjoyed the luxury of travelling outside South America very much and therefore may not have had the chance to experience that dog poop everywhere or sick animals in the street is definitely not normal.

Termas Colina and Glaciar Nieves Negras

Last weekend we enjoyed one of those trips that remind us again of why we decided to move to Chile. We took Friday off and combined trekking, spending some quality time with our dogs and flollopping in some hot springs, which is actually very easy to do when you live in Santiago. One should really do it more often... :o)

Fusion Cuisine Gazpacho

The autumn is now arriving in Chile but for those in the northern hemisphere, here is a very simple and fun summer recipe - Fusion Gazpacho

Indian recipes - The world at your doorstep via CouchSurfing

Now and again it is nice to meet different people. The variety of our social interactions seems to be determined by many factors (like level of education, age, nationality, languages you speak, social strata or circles you move in) and as you get older the opportunity to meet different people seems to narrow. CouchSurfing is a way of adding some variety to your social interactions. The idea is simple: there are travelers who can benefit from meeting locals and there are locals who may find it interesting to host travelers: enjoy the cultural exchange and perhaps get something out of some the "pay-it-forward" or "gift economy": Both of us have experienced random acts of kindness by "strangers" that have made our life much richer - they may not need repayment but we can help others to get the same experience and make the world a little better.

Nahuelbuta National Park

A couple of weekends ago we went to Nahuelbuta National Park. The park is located about 500km south of Santiago and has relatively easy access (Ruta 5 for 500km to Angol and then about 30-40km on a dirt track which is mostly ok though probably 4x4 is needed in bad weather). The park is one of the few areas where the native forest that was there up to 200 years ago has not been wiped out. It consists mostly of Araucaria trees, Canelo trees and some nothofagus: coihue, Ñirre and lenga trees.

Cochamó

For the last trip of the year we decided to visit the Cochamo Valley (also known among the climbers as the "Yosemite of Chile").