Travelog for: Pato

Hi everyone!
My name is Pato. Pato means duck in spanish but that's another story. I'm here to talk about my travels, not linguistics
My first adventure was a trip to the mountain. This region of Chile is indeed beautiful!

Hohoho from a 30ºC Christmas day!

We celebrated Christmas and I got everyone presents Everyone was very excited!

Merry Christmas!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL THE TOYVOYAGERS AND THEIR FAMILIES!

We came to celebrate to our summer house in the beautiful fishing village of Queule
At midnight it was time for "3... 2... 1...!!"
As you can see we had a very good time and we stayed up late in the deck watching little fireworks and people playing with sparklers. Our neighbors had good loud music, so we also danced a little

The next day when we woke up (which wasn't precisely early...) the sun was shining and the sky was all blue. The balcony is a perfect place to breathe fresh sea breeze looking at a beautiful landscape!

Later after lunch we started walking to one of the beaches nearby, well, not so near, about 40 minutes walking up and down the hills But I have no problem with walking, it's good excersise to prepare my body for the beach season

It was a very fun day!
Happy 2012 to everyone, felíz año nuevo!

Hello world!

After 15 hours of drive we got to a city in the north called La Serena
The climate here is semi desertic, thing you can see also in the vegetation... It's very nice here, I want to explore more!

Hello people and fellow toyvoyagers!

Another sunny day here in La Serena! In fact most of the days are sunny here and fantastically it only rains a few days a year!

Today we visited the japanese garden!

We went to Coquimbo, a city next to La Serena, literally, like 10 minutes away

Then we went up to the highest point in the city, the Third Millenium Cross, a giant monuent and view point inagurated by John Paul II in 2000

After the visit to the cross we went to a fortress used to fight the pirates back in the day!

Hello audience!

On this sunny sunny day, not rare in this time of the year, we went to the enchanting Elqui Valley!

There are so many carnivals going on around the world so we decided we had to do something about it... our own carnival! We weren't quite sure whether to do it the brazilian way, or more venetian... so we decided to do a mix, or own carnival style. Then we all gathered in our colorful costumes to let the party begin!

Hi people!

This is Pato reporting from Bolivia!
Yay! After more than 50 hours traveling through coasts, valleys, the Atacama desert and the Andean Plateau, we made it to the highest city in the world, Potosí in Bolivia, at 4060 m.a.s.l! At this height one can really feel the lack of oxygen so we feel tired the whole time.

I learned that there are 36 beautiful churches in the city, all built in the conquest times, around the year 1500. The natives were forced to build as slaves and they were so angry to be building churches for a God they didn't believe in, that they decided to add some elements of their beliefs to the constructions, even if they knew the spanish would kill them for doing so!

Another day starts here in Potosí and the city awaits to be discovered! so here we go! The first thing that caught my attention when we started walking were the very narrow streets!
The tour guide told us it's because they were made for tumbrils in the past, so now it's difficult to drive cars through these streets

We ended the day at the most famous icon of Potosí, that rather ugly face behing me. It is in the patio of the government palace and that face belongs to a guard that many years ago discovered some fraud going on with the city's money.

Hi my dear people!

We visited the biggest salt flat in the world, Uyuni!
The first stop of the tour was at a "train cemetery", a place in the middle of nowhere where there were many many abandoned old trains! Then they took us to the salt museum, everything there was made of salt, even the museum itself! And then they finally took us to the Uyuni salt flat! The world's largest salt flat, 10,582 Km² of salt!

Hey world!

I am in the very middle of the Atacama desert in a town called San Pedro de Atacama Today we took a tour to the heard of the desert and I walked under the hottest sun I've ever felt! But I was wearing lots and lots of some powerful sunscreen some I'm still alive We saw the Death Valley, can you guess why it's called like that? I certainly wouldn't like to be lost here... Then we went to another part of the desert called Moon Valley, why? because it looks like the moon! Then we walked through a cave and went to see the Amphitheater of the Atacama and the Three Marys, a rock formation that resembles three women praying... well... that's what they say, but to me they just look like fingers or dinosaurs We ended the day watching the sunset over the Coyote rock. What a beautiful view and what beautiful colors!

Hi everyone!

We are in another town in the desert, Chiu Chiu.
We went to see a Pucará! A pre-columbian fortification built in the 12th century. It's overwhelming to be in a place with such history as this!
We ended the day by the Inka Coya lagoon... It's a perfectly round lagoon with salt water and no bottom discovered so far! It's said that it's a way to hell... tho knows The desert has so many wonders! I could never get tired of exploring them!

The last stop in our trip is a city by the sea called Antofagasta, where the desert meets the ocean Here I saw the ruins of "Huanchaca". This is where long ago they processed the minerals coming from a Bolivian mine, which were brought all the way down from the Andean plateau to the shore by llamas! Believe me, that is a long and hot way!

Then we saw one of Chile's most famous icons, La Portada de Anfotagasta, the frame-like rock in the sea

Hello people!

We crossed the Andes mountain range to Argentina!
The white thing around isn't snow but volcano ashes from the very recent eruption of a chilean volcano!