Soon Boarding Flight to Chile

It's no secret that I profoundly dislike Christmas. This year will be the fifth one that we do not spend Christmas at home with our families. In 2004, we went to Las Vegas/Grand Canyon. In 2005, we went to Cuba. In 2006, we did a South East Asia tour which included Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Last year, we went to Morocco and the Sahara desert. And this year, the winner is...

CHILE!!!

We're starting our trip with a 3-day self-drive wine tour in the Colchagua Valley.

On Christmas Eve, we will join a group in Santiago. Over the next three weeks, we're going to visit the following places:

Santiago de Chile

Valparaiso

Heading North to the Atacama desert

Valle de la Luna

Salar de Atacama

Heading South to Lake District

Heading even more South...
Glacial lakes and mountain ranges of Torres del Paine

And finally flying to Easter Island

Road Trips: Northern California!

Over the past year, we have travelled all over Northern California. I haven't been great at updating my blog so here's my year-in-review, Northern-Cali style!

May 2007

Monterey/Carmel

July 2007

Camping in Yosemite National Park
October 2007

Wine tasting in Livermore (Harvest Time)January/February 2008

Skiing in Lake Tahoe
March 2008

Barrel Tasting in Russian River Valley


March 2008

Wine Tasting In Anderson Valley

March 2008

Mendocino

Marrakech, Morocco

On our way to Marrakech from Ouarzazate

Marrakech was our last stop. It's a very busy/chaotic town, one of the only place on earth where I have actually felt somewhat unsafe. We were even told to "go home to America".

Our riad (Riad Dar Pangal) was an oasis of calm in this chaos. Julio, the owner, is an eccentric man from Chili who opened this hotel 10 years ago. It's simple but tastefully decorated.

We spent New Year's Even in Marrakech. Most restaurants were fully booked and grossly over priced. In addition, I did not feel like hanging out in the main square. I noticed that garbage cans have a tendency to blow up on NYE. As such, we ended up spending NYE at our riad with a couple of guys from NYC. We had cheese, Pringles, red wine, clementine and a Kit Kat. Fun times!

Erg Chigaga, Morocco

From Ouarzazate, we drove in a 4X4 for five hours to M'hamid, had lunch and kept going for another 2 hours. That was a bumpy ride! This road is actually used for the Paris-Dakar rally.

Erg Chigaga is very different from Erg Chebi. I have affectionately renamed Erg Chigaga the "Disney Dunes". Our camp was much more comfortable than our tent in Erg Chebi. The 'bivouac' had mud walls which made the inside much warmer than camel skin with holes. It was more comfortable than a Best Western, seriously.


The dunes are much smaller. Quads reminded me of a sea-doo on a quiet lake in the summer. There are foot prints everywhere.


I was happy to see at least one desert creature! A little (I mean giant) beetle. I am glad I saw it on our last day otherwise I might not have slept that well. It's winter, all other insects were hibernating.

Ouarzazate, Morocco

On our way to Ouarzazate, we got a flat tire! It happened during the call to prayer so it's was a bit of experience.
This is an oasis in the desert. I know, it's very different than the ones we have grown up seeing in cartoons. The truth is that people have built cities around oasei. I've only seen one oasis during the whole trip.
I don't have much to share about Ouarzazate other than it's like a little Hollywood in the desert. It's a relatively big hub for movie studios when they are out in the Sahara filming.
Ouarzazate actually hosts the largest movie studio in the world. The city itself, meh.

Erg Chebi, Morocco

After a ten hour drive from Fes, we finally arrived in Merzouga where our two camels were awaiting our arrival. The drive was amazing in itself. I expected the Sahara to be all sand dunes. It's not. Most of it actually looks like Arizona. Large dune fields are known as 'ergs'. They are ancient lakes and seas. They suddenly appear in front of you like mountains do.

We left the bulk of our luggage at a Kasbah (hotel) nearby and loaded up the camels. It felt like a beautiful sunny day. Although we were only a few kilometers away from the Algerian border, it's still very much the most northern part of the Sahara.


We left the kasbah around 3:30pm.

Seeing the sunset in against 180 meter dunes was amazing. It was getting cold and dark and we were still riding. I was convinced our guide lost. Three hours later, we finally made it to the camp. A couple of tents made of camel skin with fashionable holes in them.

We had dinner with Ahmad, our guide. Tangine, of course. We fed the cat who had been brought there to chase the desert mice. Poor kitty. Judging by his hunger, my guess is that there aren't many mice there or he is not a very skill hunter. It was very, very cold at night. I am used to cold weather but I don't normally sleep outside when it's 2 degrees! I had a couple of layers on me plus five blankets. It was December 25 and we completely were alone in the Sahara desert.

We woke up early to see the sunrise next morning... a little too early. We were out by 6am. Little did we know the sun doesn't actually rise until 7am! We took our blanket with us and sat at the top of dune until the sunrise came. The sunset was amazing but the sunrise was incredible.


After breakfast, we decided to go hiking the dunes. They are much higher than they look!


After playing in the same, we rode back to the Kasbah before another long drive to Ouarzazate.