The Atacama trip

This is the driest place on planet earth.

The soil looks wrinkled and some minerals of copper/sulphur break the surface of earth and come to the top. This gives a unique look to the Atacama landscape and it feels like the surface of Mars or Moon. Even the air is free of moisture and this gives an excellent opportunity for star gazing. Many countries have built their astronomical observatories at Atacama.

The nearest airport is Calama and you have frequent domestic flights flying from Santiago to this airport. The town of San Pedro De Atacama is around 90 minutes drive from Calama and it costs around $ 20 for a one way trip. It’s a pretty little town and every evening you can just walk to different bars, enjoy the delicious south American food & music and shop from the street markets. It felt like a town from the western cowboy movies.

The seemingly endless roads between Calama and San Pedro De Atacama.

The town.

A typical restaurant.

People usually book short trips through the various available tour operators to cover the places of interest around the town. They have a driver, an expert guide and includes food/water during the trip. The picnic lunch/breakfast offered during the trip are fun and everyone in our group thoroughly enjoyed it. In total you need 3-4 days to explore the areas around San Pedro De Atacama.

Valle de la Luna (Lunar Valley): This is usually an afternoon trip and people watch sunset from there. The formation of the surface gives it the name of Moon Valley.

We also explored some caves.

There is also one place where they have sand desert and some people do sandboarding in that place.

The other part of Atacama is visiting the mineral lagoons cruising through the desert. The lagoons are pink/blue in color because of the high mineral content. In one place we also saw a lot of Flamingos. After many years we saw such clear blue sky and infinite number of stars at night. 

Some pics from that trip:

The picnic lunch:

Based on above the additional advice will be:

• Take a lot of very good quality sunscreen lotion.
• Stay hydrated.
• Book in advance.

Picture Courtesy : Shilpi Samantray

The trip to Machu Pichu

For me it was a long pending dream that finally came true.

The best way to reach Machu Pichu is from a small town in Peru called Cusco. It won’t be directly reachable from the place where you are reading this answer. Most of the international flights to South America outside of the Americas go to Sao Paulo. And then you have to go to Lima and take a domestic flight to Cusco.

It’s ideal to keep aside two days for Cusco in the beginning. You can simply walk around this pretty little town and have very nice food near the town square. We tried Guinee Pig for the first time J (and it was tasty). There is also a street market in the evening and you can find really good handicrafts made by the locals at a very good price.

Few pics from Cusco:

Aerial view of the city before our landing

Sacsayhuaman

The town square

The narrow lanes of Cusco

From here to Machu Pichu you need to book through a reliable tour operator. A typical full day trip starts at morning 4 AM and you are back late at night to Cusco. The fully covered tour includes your drive, train tickets and guide. For the first time I saw a train with glass roof and the view was superb. We took their bus to the top and hiked our way down. The hiking routes are very clearly marked and you can easily find your way to the train station at the base of the mountain.

Once you reach the top you are simply blown away by the view and couldn’t help appreciating the people who built this city at the top of the mountain. The most agreed upon hypothesis is that the Incas abandoned the city centuries ago. They were afraid that the Spanish people will reach there and take away all their secrets and occupy this sacred town. So they evacuated the city and blocked all the entries so that its hard to find. The city itself was only for the elite and the common citizen of the empire just used to come here in the morning to work and climb down from the mountain in the evening. A good guide is the key here as there is so much of history to Machu Pichu that only a professional can explain in detail. You will see a lot of interesting things around you related to their daily habbits and the guide will be there to answer all your questions. Even a mummy was found in Inca empire which is not far away from Machu Pichu.

Pics from Machu Pichu:

On your way back you can stroll around the market close to the train station. It is again a good place to purchase souvenirs.

You reach late night at Cusco and just keep wondering about the great civilization that occupied this land hundreds of years ago and cherish the memories that you have brought from Machu Pichu!

Picture Courtesy : Shilpi Samantray

Better late than never

They spent their childhood living up to their parent’s expectations.

They spent their adulthood living up to the society’s expectations.

They spent their youth slogging for money.

They spent their middle age living for their children.

They spent their later age living for their grandchildren.

When they were old, they were looking for the time which they had kept for themselves and they realized they had already lost it.

Take out time for yourself. And do it now.

The African Safari

Been to both Masai Mara and the endless plains of Serengeti. And this is the kind of view we were able to capture over there.

Once you go on an african safari, you won't feel like visiting any other national park to see these majestic wild animals. They are in their natural habitat and are not afraid to come close to the vehicles. You can see them hunting, playing, eating, sleeping, mating and fighting. I will give details of both the national parks along with some photos that my wife clicked. And needless to say, this is a paradise for photographers in general and wild life photographers in particular. The whole area is a part of the Great Rift Valley which extends 6000 Kms from Lebanon to Mozambique. It provides a safe harbour for the wild life and has a balanced ecosystem for all kinds of predators, prays and birds to flourish.

Complete Itinerary with places we visited:

Masai Mara:

This is in Kenya and most of the tour operators have their base in Nairobi. You need to have a good guide else it can completely ruin your trip. We booked through Karibu Safaris and our guide was amazing. He kept telling us about the history of the tribes and was quick to spot wildlife. He was able to answer all our questions and took the effort to refer to his book wherever he was stuck. We were on a 4 day trip and covered Lake Nakuru and Masai Mara.

The positive things of Masai Mara:

• Its smaller so it is densely packed with wild life. So chances of seeing the big 5 are higher.
• Greener compared to Serengeti.
• Cheaper than Serengeti.
• There is no defined path for the vehicles and you can drive really close to the animals.

Negatives:

• If you want to stay inside the national park then there is no option for that. You have to camp outside and check in each day.

Now time for some pics.

Lake Nakuru:

Masai Mara:

Serengeti:

There is a reason they call it endless plains. Its huge. Its much bigger than you can imagine and wherever your eyes go you will see the plains with rarely any trees. These bushy forests without big trees give a good hunting ground for the predators and hence supports a big number of wild cats. We booked through Ancient Wild Safaris. Here we had a bad experience as the Driver/Guide was too busy chatting with his buddy in a loud voice and least interested in interacting with us. Still we managed to see 20+ lions in a day. The trip also included Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara.

Positives:

• The entry to Serengeti involves a drive through a long dusty road which feels like the scenes from Mad Max - Furry Road.
• You can camp inside the national park. (Could be a negative for some as we were warned not to keep any food items inside the tent as it attracts Hyenas :) )
• More wildlife as it is huge.

Negatives:

• The size ensures that the chances of seeing hunting and other behaviour are less likely.
• The rules are a bit strict and the vehicles restrict themselves to the roads built for them.

Pics:

One thing that I could have changed in my itinerary was to skip Serengeti and spend some time in Zanzibar instead.

Hope this helps the fellow travellers!

Picture Credits : Shilpi Samantray

The Trip to Antarctica

A Trip to Antarctica

We are just back from the trip of a lifetime, wandering around the white continent and cruising through the Chilean fjords. It is hard to describe this place in words but in one line I would say that whatever vague notion of heaven we have in our minds; Antarctica is as real as it can get. Here I will talk about all the different parts of our travel and the planning to help out other fellow travellers, especially from an Indian point of view. Also I will share some photographs taken by my wife to further inspire you :). We started from India on 3^rd December. All the major airlines go till Sao Paulo from there you have to take any South American airline to reach Santiago. We arrive at Santiago on 4^th December 1 AM and left for Calama at 6 AM to visit the Atacamas. It’s a wonderful place and it is a good idea to club it with your Antarctica trip if you are going through Chile. We reported to our Cruise company on 6^th December afternoon for our tour briefing and overnight stay at Santiago. The Ship starts sailing on 7^th December from Punta Arenas.

Visa

Most of the ships leave from Argentina but a few (like ours) start from Chile. The visa application for Chile is fairly straight forward now. But the web site is not updated and it is hard to even find the right application form. We ended up filling an outdated form and turned up at the embassy. The guard pointed us to the right link. https://tramites.minrel.gov.cl.

The list of documents required can be found from here.

http://chile.gob.cl/nueva-delhi/en/sobre-el-consulado/visa-para-chile/

You have to fill in the application form here and make sure that it is actually submitted and you receive the 6-digit application number. Once it is approved you have to just take the print out of the form along with your passport and submit at the embassy at Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. In case you have a valid US/UK visa then you can assign a visa agent to submit/collect it on your behalf. They will give you a receipt to deposit fees in a nearby bank and usually the passport is ready for collection in 2 working days. They don’t necessarily update the status online and you have to call the embassy and confirm it.

For Antarctica you don’t need any visa/permit. Everything is taken care of by the cruise company.

Choosing the right Ship 

Both the bigger ships and the smaller ships have their pros and cons for Antarctic voyage. The bigger ships have more facilities, are more stable in the Drake’s passage and they have state of the art emergency rescue systems. The smaller ones will be a bit shaky and may not have the above facilities. But since there is a restriction on the number of people that can land at a given area in Antarctica, the bigger ships will put people in batches and ultimately you end up landing for 1-2 hours each day (though we always used to come back in the last Zodiac from the land but some companies may strictly follow the rules ). In the smaller ships you can spend the entire day on the land. We went on a mid-sized ship MS Midnatsol operated by Hurtigruten. The ship was amazing and cruise experience was much above our expectations. It is absolutely worth all the money that you are paying them.  We booked a polar outside cabin for 11,000 euros for two people. The lowest rate that I can see on the website is 4000 euros for triple occupancy in a cabin with no window. We booked a cabin with view but since you stay outside throughout the day it won’t make any difference. Some people do directly reach the departure point few days before and try to get the best last minute deal. If you have ample time and are a risk taker then thats not a bad idea.

On Board MS Midnatsol 

The ship has all the regular facilities that you need. A library, a science center, panoramic observatory, gym, hot pool, lot of interesting lectures in the conference room, 3 well stocked bars and variety of food. Food is included in the cruise ticket. For us Indians though it got a little monotonous after a while as we started missing our spicy food. So be mentally prepared for that. You can carry your own alcohol which can only be consumed in your cabins. But the on board bar is also not prohibitively expensive (INR 300 for a mug of beer) and you can have it while relaxing in the lounge staring at the vast ocean and ice.  Here are few photos of the ship.

Above is our cabin. It was small but very optimally designed. So it seemed quite spacious for two people.

The Antarctic Experience 

Now comes the real part. While cruising through the fjords leaving Chile, you feel like you are inside the sets of Game of Thrones. You will be sailing through lush green mountains and crossing the lands beyond the seven kingdoms.

We had a stop at Port Williams which is considered to be the southernmost town of the world. Though there are two more claimants for this: Ushuaia and Punta Arenas. I guess they all have a different definition of city. We had the full day to explore this port town and the Omora National Park. This is home to the Yamana tribes and there are still roughly 100 pure blood Yamanas living on this port town. We had few lectures on them during our cruise.

Here are few shots from this place.

  

Cape Horn is the last piece of land that you will see before you reach Antarctica. It was customary for the ships going south to stop here and pray for a safe passage. They have even installed a life sized sculpture of an albatross. Their wingspan can grow as big as 4 meters. There is one house on that island where a navy officer stays with his family. He maintains the light house. You also get the option to put a full page cape horn stamp on your passport as a souvenir. It has no official meaning but good to have :).

Then comes the dreaded drake’s passage. In our case it was not as horrible as we had read online. It was bumpy for around 40 hours but nothing to make you sick. And you cross a lot of albatrosses during your voyage and they make sure that you have a safe passage through this fusion of the Atlantic and the Pacific. Here is one of the pics that we managed to capture.

And once you land in Antarctica, you quickly jump to the sets of star-wars. The ice is all around you.

I will split our Antarctic continent journey into different landing sites that we visited. The ship gets a good place to anchor itself and we use the zodiac boats to visit the landing site.

Half-Moon Island (62°35′24″S 59°54′36″W) – 12^th December 

This one of the outermost islands of Antarctic peninsula. You can see Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins, seals and some sea birds at this place. Temperature was close to 1 degree Celsius and you have to warm up as per the wind conditions. There are a lot of penguin colonies here and the horrible smell of their excretions will always tell you where they are.

Deception Island (62°58′37″S 60°39′00″W) – 13^th December

The first ship that tried to land here just kept circling it and was not able to find the entry to this circular land. Hence the name deception island. It has an active volcano and all the land here is covered from the ashes of the eruptions. It gets extremely windy and the trek to the top is not as easy it seems. Not much wildlife here but you see a different face of the Antarctic landscape.

Neko Harbour (64°50′S 62°33′W) – 14^th December 

Now this one is on the mainland Antarctica. So it is our first step on the main Antarctic continent and in our minds we finally put a check on the 7^th continent. We had an amazing cruise experience here followed by landing. Apart from the small land patches where the penguins make their nest out of stones, the land mass is completely covered in ice. The weather was amazing and we could let go of our heavy jackets on land. We got some of the best wild life shots at this place. A standard 18-55 mm lens may not be very helpful here and you need 200mm-300mm lens to get a close up shot of the seals/penguins.

Cuverville Island (64°41′S 62°38′W) – 15^th December

This island is again dominated by the Gentoo penguin colonies. As you approach the island you can feel the horrible stench created by the penguins. The weather was not great and it started snowing as well. The only silver lining is that we managed to get some got shots through the snow J.

Damoy Point and Port Lockroy (64°49′S 63°29′W) – 16^th December

Domoy point has couple of cabins where some explorers were residing decades back. You are allowed to get inside those and have a glimpse of the lifestyle that they we were having while stuck in Antarctica. Also land is not very hilly and the snow look like sand dunes on this island. It looks like a white desert. Again lot of Gentoo penguins and some super lazy seals. We waited a for a very long time for the seals to make some movement which we can capture but they are absolutely bored of humans and kept ignoring us.

Wilhelmina Bay (64°38′S 62°10′W)  – 17^th December 

There were no plans for a landing here but the expedition team members found out some really good sea ice where we can walk around. These plates are a very integral part of the Antarctic eco system as it supports the seals as a resting place in their hunt for food. A lot of smaller organisms also depend on them for planktons. During our entire journey from the past few days we could spot a lot of humpback whales and once we got close to a pack of half a dozen of them. But this was our lucky day. One humback whale was feeding in that bay and it was very close to our zodiac. We had a good look at this majestic creature.

And here is our pic after completing our bucket list.

Conclusion 

We started moving northwards through the drakes passage and finally crossed it on 19^th morning. Again apart from little uneasiness it was smooth for the most part. All thanks to the ship. We made quick halts at Cape Horn and Port Williams for operational reasons. This time the ship made some strategic halts on the beagle channel and we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of Chilean fjords. We also made a quick cruising trip at Tucker Island and saw Megallanic Penguins and a lot of other local bird species. The trip was ending on 21^st and the atmosphere was very gloomy on the ship. It was hard for everyone to leave this serene place and jump into the hustle bustles of our daily lives. It was not like any other vacations where there are threads tying you to the real word. Here you are lost in the sea and ice and living some of the best moments of your life. It is like waking up from a beautiful dream and you long to get back to it. May be not now. May be not in near future. But definitely someday we are going back :).