The United Buddy Bears Exhibition reached on its world tour Santiago de Chile in 2015. The 140 life-sized Buddy Bears are shown at the Parque Bicentenario next to the Municipality of Vitacura until June 19. Ten small and two larger Buddy Bears have been crafted by local artists and were auctioned at the Galería ARTIUM for charity. We purchased the bear by the chilean artist María José Romero. Have a look at some impressions from the exhibition and the auction. And have a more detailed 360 degree look at M.J.R’s sculpture. The revenues of the auction are donated to Fundación Cristo Vive to support some 900 kids at its kindergartens and nursery schools.
Hike to the top of Cerro El Roble
Last weekend we did a beautiful hike to the top of Cerro El Roble, with 2222m the highest peak in the coastal mountains near Santiago de Chile. We started our hike at 1650m – just above the clouds with the first spectacular panoramic views to the West to the Pacific ocean and to Cerro La Campana sticking its peak through the clouds. To the East we could see at the horizon over a sea of clouds the Andes mountain range with its highest peak, the Aconcagua (6960m). The easy trail climbs up to Cerro El Roble and passes through the northernmost forest of Roble Beech trees (Nothofagus obliqua) which were still beautifully late-autumn coloured. The climb to the top was then rewarded by most impressive panoramic sights from the El Roble mountain.
New gallery from Laguna del Laja added
End of March we visited together with our friend Guido from Switzerland the Laguna del Laja National Park near Antuco in the Bío-Bío Region some 500 km south of Santiago.
Panorama pages added
I have added some panorama shots from the Antarctica, Spitsbergen, Southwest USA and the Pumalín Park tours. They are shown on dedicated pages using a panorama viewer that allows panning and zooming. The 360-degree panorama of the Chaitén Volcano is a 64 Megapixel image and provides high-resolution views. Have fun!
A&A Photography updated to TTG CE4
The A&A Photography webpage is now powered by The Turning Gate Core Elements 4 (TTG CE4) Web Publishing Suite. TTG CE4 is a collection of plugins for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom that allows high-quality publishing of web pages and photo galleries directly from Lightroom. I started using TTG in 2012 with version CE2. The latest version CE4 provides very powerful publishing tools for desktop and mobile devices, high-quality gallery slide shows and improved support to social networks. I took also the opportunity to upgrade the slide shows to 1024 pixel resolution and introduce an improved naming scheme for the images. Hope you like it!
New gallery from Pumalín Park added
Here comes the picture gallery behind the Happy New Year 2015 post. We visited the northern part of the Carretera Austral (Ruta 7) between Christmas and New Year. We spent most of our time in the Pumalín Park, a private natural sanctuary founded by Douglas Tompkins.
New picture gallery from Southwest USA added
This picture gallery is a selection of pictures from our three week-tour in the Southwest of the USA through the states of Arizona, Utah and Colorado in August and September last year. We did an amazing round trip of 3077 miles starting and ending in Phoenix and visited 28 national and state parks, national monuments and other landmarks.
Continue reading “New picture gallery from Southwest USA added”
Happy New Year 2015
We wish you all the best for a Happy New Year!
Help us to reforest Patagonia!
Chilean Patagonia is a world treasure, but forest fires and human intervention have caused the destruction of more than 3 million hectares in the Aysen and Magallanes regions. Reforest Patagonia is the largest reforestation initiative in Chile’s history. It is a non-profit citizen movement that mobilizes public and private support to organize initiatives that contribute to the care, education, recovery and value of Chile’s main national treasure: Patagonia.
New gallery Autumn Colours released
The plan was to drive South to look for autumn colours. Problem was, the first week of May is generally considered to be too early for that. But we had no choice. After an overnight stop at Ruedi’s Viña Chillán we arrived to our first destination, the natural reserve Huilo Huilo where we stayed at the spectacular Nothofagus hotel.