Pics of my recent travels to La Serena and Santiago Chile,
Nazca, Lima, Cuzco and Arequipa Peru, and Northern California.
NOTE: The picture quality here will vary from machine to machine. On my old sun
workstation (with 8 bit color) a lot of the pictures don't look so hot, whereas
on our fancy new PC (with 24 bit color) they look quite nice. ALSO, I am still
working on this page! I know there are spelling mistakes (Raji and Bharati!!!).
Please let me know of mistakes or problems, and if you want to flame me too,
so be it!!
I have included a MAP of the regions traveled in
S. America. You can obtain more information and maps on S. America
from www.city.net .
My original rational for visiting South America this particular time
came from the granting of telescope observing time at
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The observatory headquarters
are in La Serena Chile with the observatory itself about 100 kilometers
away. Here is a postcard of the mountain top itself (47K).
After my observing run I spent several days reducing my data at the
observatory headquarters in La Serena. La Serena is a rather small
town, but is also located on the coast and happens to be one of the
largest beach resorts in S. America.
On December 6th I left La Serena by bus and headed for the Peruvian
border town of Arica. 19 hours later I arrived in Arica and took a
taxi (called a collectivo which can take more than one passenger, making
the price much less) across the border to the Peruvian city of Tacna.
NAZCA
From Tacna I booked an overnight bus to the city of Nazca.
LIMA
Plaza de San Martin, Lima, Peru (151K).
As I mentioned at the end of the Nazca page I left Nazca the night
of Dec 9th as to arrive 7 hours later the morning of Dec 10th.
I managed to find yet another hotel for $5/night in the center of
Lima. It was a hotel with a lot of character. The roof had a lot
of plants growing, some animals, a nice view of the city and
some places to sit down and enjoy the summer breeze! I met a nice
woman from Danemark on the roof and we got to exchange all our travel
stories. Eventhough I think I have seen a lot of S. America over the
years, I always meet someone who just totally blows me away with
their stories. Especially true in this case since traveling as a single
woman is not always so easy in S. America. Outside of hanging around
my hotel I spent most of the day in Lima just walking around the downtown.
That night I picked Kurt and Mary Beth up at the airport (they were flying in
from Indiana, after having driven there from Minneapolis!). The
next morning we got an early flight out of Lima to Cuzco (the former capital
of the Inca empire). It is 45 minutes by plane, 30 hours by bus! Which
would you choose? If I had to do it over again I would have taken the
bus! You will soon find out why...
The Cuzco Area
A view of Machuu Pichuu, the lost city of the
Incas (75K).
Arequipa
Arequipa's Plaza de Armas (57K). I traveled to Arequipa
for a few reasons.
One was that it was on the way to Chile. Secondly it has a 5800 meter Volcano
that is supposed to be one of the easiest to scale in the world and thirdly
my guidebook recommended both a Franciscan Monestary (with an excellent
library of books as old as 400 years) and a Nunnery (closed to the outside
world for 300+ years).
South to Santiago de Chile
From Arequipa I passed thru the cities of Tacna, Arica and La Serena on my
way to Santiago de Chile. There I spent another 5 days working at the
Astrophysics Group of the Catholic
University AND hiking at the end of Cajon del Maipo(57K).
California
So, I finally made it back to the USA! I had the
great fortune to visit
a few of my friends in California. Here is a pic of Raji and David (99K)
in Raji's apartment (for which she pays a huge amount!).
I stayed in Mountain View, Cal. with Raji and Davis, Cal. with David.
HOME
Indeed I did reluctantly come back to St.Louis and my most
humble basement apartment (48K). It's always bad and good to come back home
to familiar surroundings.
My roommates Mike, Tania and Marcus are certainly glad to know that I can
still pay my utility bills... Well, all the more reason to schedule the next
trip... Europe and/or Asia anyone????
My original rational for visiting South America this particular time
came from the granting of telescope observing time at
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The observatory headquarters
are in La Serena Chile with the observatory itself about 100 kilometers
away. Here is a postcard of the mountain top itself (47K).
