Sunrise over El Tatio

During our trip from Argentina to Chile we crossed the Andes mountain range: an experience in itself... But once on the Chilean side of the Andes we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. 
San Pedro de Atacama is a little oasis town in the Atacama desert, and a good base from which to discover the surrounding area. One of the trips we made was to El Tatio.

Crossing the Andes

El Tatio it is a geyser field, and its name means the grandfather. El Tatio is 4320 meters above sea level and has over 80 active geysers. This makes El Tatio the second highest (in elevation) geyser fields in the world and the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere.

El Tatio right before sunrise

We were told that El Tatios is at its best at sunrise, which ment leaving San Pedro at 4am... oh my! And, being at both high altitide and in the desert, it was COLD! So there we were, waiting in the middle of the night (4am is not morning!), in as many layers of clothing we could fit, in the dark, for our minivan.  That came about 45 min later :(

We were packed in the minivan with a few other tourist, and drove off to El Tatio. Some 90 minutes later, over mostly gravel roads, we arrived, about 15 minutes before sunrise.  The temperature at that point was about minus 10'C. The area looked like a misty moon landscape.
Various little ice pools were encircled by stones.

Sunrise

And then the sun rose.....
Some of the pools started bubbling, and the ice broke. Misty fumes rose all suround us. It was like magic.
As with most touristy places with natural hot water, our guides sed the thermal heat to cook us breakfast. Hot chocolate and hard boiled eggs. Or half raw eggs if you use the wrong puddle ;-)

As the sun rose we could warm ourselfs in the thermal pools.
I decided to just warm my feet though: the air temperature still was only around 10'C, not really my favourite temp to get undressed in!
So, as you might''ve guessed: it was a bit to chilly for me, but on the whole it was really worth it!

Even the birds looked cold

Katz's - New York

When we went to New York, of course we had a couple of places we really wanted to visit. So like good and proper tourists we went to Central Park, took the Staten Island Ferry and walked the Brooklyn Bridge.

And when we had dinner with fiends (locals), they told us that when we really wanted to be in New York, we HAD to go to Katz's deli and eat a pastrami sandwich, so we did.

Katz's is a retro deli in Manhattens Lower East Side. In this area there are many kosher and kosher style delis. Katz's is a kosher style deli  and considered one of the best, and according to wikipedia: Each week, Katz's serves 10,000 pounds of pastrami 5,000 pounds corned beef, 2,000 pounds of  salami and 12,000 hot dogs.

the diner is covered with signs and photos

We expected that it would be a pretty touristy, since Katz's is featured in several movies, including the most famous scene from 'When Harry met Sally'.... yes, the one in which Meg Ryan is faking it!

And of course the exact table from this movie as a sign above it, but on the whole, the diner felt pretty authentic.

Pickles and salamis waiting to be sold

Lots of locals were eating in and ordering take away. We decided of course on eating in, considering the size of the portions we dicided on sharing a pastrami sandwich.
Served on rye bread, with  musterd and pickles on the side.

Our order

Whale shark watching - Isla Holbox

We decided in 2007 that we should change our 'routine' of going to Asia each year, and 'try' another continent. To be very blunt, on of the main reasons of going to Asia was financial: Asia is cheap for westeners...
We simply coudn't affort South America at the time.. or Australia.. And since we live in Europe that wasn't our first choice either. After some deliberating we chose to go to Mexico.

Watching pelicans over dinner

Of course when you go to Mexico, there's plenty to see. One of the things that caught our attention in our travel guide was the possibility to watch whale sharks... woah! That sounds pretty amazing, right?

Now... the place to to this was a tiny island off the coast of Yucatan penisula called Isla Holbox.  Motorised vehicles are not allowed on the island, and the main source of income is tourists, who visit to go on whale shark watching tours. So that's where we went!
 

Isla Holbox, with a storm hoovering over it

We booked a tour, and early morning we left the island. Of course, since the whale sharks can be anywhere... we wondered how our guides would find them?

The islanders work together tracking the whale sharks. Fast boats leave the island at the break of dawn and spread out over the gulf of Mexico to scout the waters. An hour or so later the tourist boats leave the island and head in the most likely direction. As soon as the scouts spot one or more whale sharks they radio the tourist boats where to go to.

Feeding whale shark

Now... even though it's name sounds quite dangerous,  whale sharks feed mainly on plankton. But they are BIG! The biggest fish that swim this earth to be exact.... 
(Official reports say up to 13 m long, though locals say they grow even longer.)
So.. at our first enounter we were amazed by it's size, and then our guide told us this was 'just a baby'  at 8 meters length. Okay.

Look at the size of it! (Only mouth and dorsal fin are visible)

A few minutes later we found a grown specimen and we were alowed to go into the water. 
We were happily surprised at how well the rules were abided: Only 2 people were allowed in the water at the same time and even though there were 2 boats near this shark, the captains coordinated this quite well. Before you went in you were very strictly instructed not to touch the shark.

It was a truely amazing experience. The shark lookled like it was barely moving, but swam so fast! It was hard to keep up for it for more than a minute (and we are pretty agile swimmers)
The way it fed, the size of its open mouth...  Even though I know it eats just plankton, I could easily fit in that mouth! And since a lot of water goes through it, there is an actual currunt pulling you towards it.

So you may wonder... why only crappy phots of this amazing animal?
Well.... if a have to make a choice I choose actually experiencing over documenting. As was the case here. So a made a few photos, but most of it is only a memory.  I can only say: I you ever have the opportunity, make some of your own memories!

A pod of pelicans near the island