Great news...a slightly freak rain storm has hit Santiago and the coast. It's tipping it down, something everyone has been openly hoping for since the fire in Quintay started a few days ago and which no one thought would actually happen. It very rarely rains this early in the year. So the fire has been slowed before it could do any damage to residential areas and it should be completely out withing a few days. Good stuff.
Shame about the 4000 hectares of forest lost though.
Friday, 7 March 2008
Lessons to be learned from Argentine government shock!
As a follow on from yesterday's rant, I wanted to post about from where Valparaiso could take some advice.
Having lived and worked in Argentina, it's not often you'll hear me praising a government initiative. However, when it comes to tourism, Argentina and Buenos Aires in particular are brilliant examples of what can be done with just a little effort.
Before the 01/02 economic crisis in Argentina, pretty much no one visited that country. The 1-1 Dollar-Peso scared most people off. When the economy collapsed, Argentina became an overnight bargain and started to receive large quantities of visitors. The national and Buenos Aires City governments realised they were onto something and have, over the past few years, done an incredible job of marketing the country as one of the best tourist destinations in the world and Buenos Aires as one of the coolest cities.
On top of the world wide advertising campaigns and ability to charm foreign travel writers, the best example of how the government has actively helped Buenos Aires become such a great destination is the city website. This is probably the best government sponsored city guide anywhere in the world. Go have a browse-there's so much information there, from walking tours, restaurant and hotel listings, podcasts, a blog, maps, essential information and more. A brilliant resource for anyone thinking of visiting BA or already there.
Chile needs to come down off its reciprocity high horse and start investing in making Chile as popular a destination as Argentina. I've met so many travellers in Argentina who won't come to Chile because of the tax, and it's unlikely the majority of them will be back in this neck of the woods anytime soon. Chile needs to be attracting the tourists who are already in the Southern Cone and also visitors who will be coming directly to Chile.
Valparaiso needs a website like Buenos Aires'. It's an investment that will repay itself many times over. At the moment, this blog is pretty much the only English language site promoting the city. And that's not right.
Finally, the Valpo tourism director told us that the city is actually going to put an information booth about the city in Buenos Aires. Brilliant!, I thought. Except that the booth is going to be put somewhere down in Puerto Madero. Where no one is going to notice it.
To me, the obvious area in which to be promoting Valparaiso is the area of Buenos Aires that most resembles the kind of experience you might expect here: Namely, Palermo Viejo/Soho/Hollywood. This part of BA has boutique hotels, good restaurants, good bars and good shopping. Valpo has the first three and will almost certainly have the last one in the near future. The people who stay, shop, eat and drink in Palermo, foreigners and Argentines alike, are the same people who would almost certainly enjoy Valparaiso. By putting the info point in Puerto Madero, Valpo is only going to attract tourists who might well have the city on their itinerary anyway and possibly a couple of wealthy Argentines.
I'll be happy next week, I promise :)
Having lived and worked in Argentina, it's not often you'll hear me praising a government initiative. However, when it comes to tourism, Argentina and Buenos Aires in particular are brilliant examples of what can be done with just a little effort.
Before the 01/02 economic crisis in Argentina, pretty much no one visited that country. The 1-1 Dollar-Peso scared most people off. When the economy collapsed, Argentina became an overnight bargain and started to receive large quantities of visitors. The national and Buenos Aires City governments realised they were onto something and have, over the past few years, done an incredible job of marketing the country as one of the best tourist destinations in the world and Buenos Aires as one of the coolest cities.
On top of the world wide advertising campaigns and ability to charm foreign travel writers, the best example of how the government has actively helped Buenos Aires become such a great destination is the city website. This is probably the best government sponsored city guide anywhere in the world. Go have a browse-there's so much information there, from walking tours, restaurant and hotel listings, podcasts, a blog, maps, essential information and more. A brilliant resource for anyone thinking of visiting BA or already there.
Chile needs to come down off its reciprocity high horse and start investing in making Chile as popular a destination as Argentina. I've met so many travellers in Argentina who won't come to Chile because of the tax, and it's unlikely the majority of them will be back in this neck of the woods anytime soon. Chile needs to be attracting the tourists who are already in the Southern Cone and also visitors who will be coming directly to Chile.
Valparaiso needs a website like Buenos Aires'. It's an investment that will repay itself many times over. At the moment, this blog is pretty much the only English language site promoting the city. And that's not right.
Finally, the Valpo tourism director told us that the city is actually going to put an information booth about the city in Buenos Aires. Brilliant!, I thought. Except that the booth is going to be put somewhere down in Puerto Madero. Where no one is going to notice it.
To me, the obvious area in which to be promoting Valparaiso is the area of Buenos Aires that most resembles the kind of experience you might expect here: Namely, Palermo Viejo/Soho/Hollywood. This part of BA has boutique hotels, good restaurants, good bars and good shopping. Valpo has the first three and will almost certainly have the last one in the near future. The people who stay, shop, eat and drink in Palermo, foreigners and Argentines alike, are the same people who would almost certainly enjoy Valparaiso. By putting the info point in Puerto Madero, Valpo is only going to attract tourists who might well have the city on their itinerary anyway and possibly a couple of wealthy Argentines.
I'll be happy next week, I promise :)
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Smoky Valparaiso II
On Monday evening, the smoke in Valparaiso was pretty awful. The air was thick with the smell of it and it was actually hard to breathe. I had a terrible headache. It was like being in Santiago in June.
Tuesday and Wednesday were much better. So much so that I didn't check the news to see the status of the fire. But yesterday evening, the smoke was back and there was a blizzard of ash. The whole city is now covered in a grey-black dust.
The fire was intentionally set. Two separate fires were started at the same time, which obviously suggests more than one complete and utter twat involved. I really don't understand why people do such stupid stuff.
Around 3600 hectares of forest have now been burnt, spewing smoke into the atmosphere. Homes in Laguna Verde have been evacuated and at least one death has been reported amongst the elderly due to respiratory problems. Perhaps the culprits should be tried for murder?
Anyway, one upside of the smoke yesterday was that, close to sunset, Valparaiso was quite literally glowing. Pretty spectacular.
Ash
Monday, 3 March 2008
Smoky Valparaiso
Yesterday afternoon at three o'clock, a forest fire started near Quintay, a fishing village about 30 km from Valparaiso. The dark cloud of smoke started edging towards Valparaiso yesterday evening and, today, the city is completely cloaked in a thick smog and there are now ashes raining down like snowflakes. It's starting to give me a headache.
Around 1500 hectares of forest have so far been affected but, luckily, the fire is not threatening any residential areas. A change in the wind could change all that. It's been predicted that the fire will rage for at least another couple of days. The entire Cuerpo de Bomberos de Valparaiso has been called into action, so I really hope there's not another fire here in the city or we'll really be in trouble...
The view up Calle Templeman, Cerro Concepcion.
Looking down towards the port from Avenida Errazurriz (I can never remember how to spell this word).
View up towards the Cemeteries.
Around 1500 hectares of forest have so far been affected but, luckily, the fire is not threatening any residential areas. A change in the wind could change all that. It's been predicted that the fire will rage for at least another couple of days. The entire Cuerpo de Bomberos de Valparaiso has been called into action, so I really hope there's not another fire here in the city or we'll really be in trouble...
The view up Calle Templeman, Cerro Concepcion.
Looking down towards the port from Avenida Errazurriz (I can never remember how to spell this word).
View up towards the Cemeteries.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Renovations-One or Two Details
Of course, with a big house there are always details to attend to. One of them for us was finding antique window locks. Called sapos, or frogs, these spring loaded locks are put at the top of the window where they ensure that the window can't open. You pull a thin chain to open them. The modern models are pretty ugly so we've been looking for antique ones for ages. We found 4 in Valparaiso a couple of weeks ago and two in Santiago last week. Added to the 7 we already had we needed around 12 more. And they're really not easy to get hold of. Muy escasos was the phrase we heard most.
For that reason, this morning we found ourselves in the 8th Circle of Hell, otherwise known as La Feria Municipal de Belloto (the other side of Quilpue). This place is a huge semi-outdoor market that sells absolutely everything ever made anywhere in the world. It's like the Persa de Bio-Bio in Santiago, but even more of a nightmare-huge crowds, traffic jams, noise and obvious pickpockets galore.
We didn't find any sapos.
We decided on the way back to drop by the antique market here in Valpo to see if more had arrived since our last visit. Jackpot! We found one and then, just a couple of stalls down, we found...wait for it...11 more. Through a huge stroke of luck, we now have all the sapos that we need. Another little detail ticked off the list.
Finally, here's a photo of our wood burner. Like in the kitchen, we designed the tiles. I'm almost looking forward to winter now, summer's getting boring. I love being inside next to the fire when there's a huge winter storm outside.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Renovations-Finished II
So here are the rest of the photos I promised (and ahead of schedule too-the late afternoon light was really nice).
This is the master bedroom-the tube in the corner is where the chimney/flue from the wood burner downstairs will pass. The floor in this bedroom is rauli, for which I have no English translation. It's the only room that doesn't have Douglas Fir floorboards-we ran out.
The white door leads to a little triangular en-suite.
The view that awaits us every morning.
The only change to the layout of the house was cutting a large room in half (and adding a bit of corridor) to create a third bedroom and a small reception area with recycled oak beams on view next to the kitchen (which is upstairs).
The kitchen isn't quite finished. The window obviously needs its double glazing (long, boring story) and there'll be a work top all along the right hand wall where the drawer unit you see will also go. The kitchen cabinets are handmade from recycled oak. And if you click on the renovations label, you'll find a post that shows the floor tiles being handmade.
This is the second bedroom with en-suite. The photos are so yellow because the wall on the left is painted that colour and the late afternoon sun streams through the windows and make the entire room look yellow.
Finally, the skylight looking up through the roof.
Once the kitchen is done and we've got all our stuff moved in (and tidied up), I'll post more photos.
This is the master bedroom-the tube in the corner is where the chimney/flue from the wood burner downstairs will pass. The floor in this bedroom is rauli, for which I have no English translation. It's the only room that doesn't have Douglas Fir floorboards-we ran out.
The white door leads to a little triangular en-suite.
The view that awaits us every morning.
The only change to the layout of the house was cutting a large room in half (and adding a bit of corridor) to create a third bedroom and a small reception area with recycled oak beams on view next to the kitchen (which is upstairs).
The kitchen isn't quite finished. The window obviously needs its double glazing (long, boring story) and there'll be a work top all along the right hand wall where the drawer unit you see will also go. The kitchen cabinets are handmade from recycled oak. And if you click on the renovations label, you'll find a post that shows the floor tiles being handmade.
This is the second bedroom with en-suite. The photos are so yellow because the wall on the left is painted that colour and the late afternoon sun streams through the windows and make the entire room look yellow.
Finally, the skylight looking up through the roof.
Once the kitchen is done and we've got all our stuff moved in (and tidied up), I'll post more photos.
Renovations-Finished...
I've been away for the past few days down in Santa Cruz, looking for a nice vineyard in Chile for some clients. We got back yesterday after putting another 1000km on the car...my back's totally killing me but it was a pretty successful trip and we also got to meet up with a friend of ours as well, which was cool.
Anyway, the house is finished. Today, the hot water will be connected and the central heating will be completed next week (we're missing a radiator, not too important in summer). Most of upstairs is a still covered in cardboard to protect the floors but downstairs is empty, so here are a few photos. More to come over the weekend. You can see the stages of the renovation process by clicking on the 'renovations' label at the bottom of this post or in the sidebar.
The two main rooms downstairs:
The white doors are going to be stripped back to the wood, like the windows above them, but we're going to do that in a few weeks once we've got another place to make a mess:
The ceiling molds and cornices are all new plaster except the corner 'faces' (there's a man in one room and a woman in another), which are the original papier mache ones. We made plaster molds to replace a couple that were too damaged to re-use.
I already have my office in place with a view of the hills:
The entrance hall:
Downstairs corridor and staircase:
The three bathrooms are all the same design. This is the easiest to take a photo of as the other two are even more triangular:
I'll have more upstairs photos and the kitchen uploaded sometime over the weekend.
Anyway, the house is finished. Today, the hot water will be connected and the central heating will be completed next week (we're missing a radiator, not too important in summer). Most of upstairs is a still covered in cardboard to protect the floors but downstairs is empty, so here are a few photos. More to come over the weekend. You can see the stages of the renovation process by clicking on the 'renovations' label at the bottom of this post or in the sidebar.
The two main rooms downstairs:
The white doors are going to be stripped back to the wood, like the windows above them, but we're going to do that in a few weeks once we've got another place to make a mess:
The ceiling molds and cornices are all new plaster except the corner 'faces' (there's a man in one room and a woman in another), which are the original papier mache ones. We made plaster molds to replace a couple that were too damaged to re-use.
I already have my office in place with a view of the hills:
The entrance hall:
Downstairs corridor and staircase:
The three bathrooms are all the same design. This is the easiest to take a photo of as the other two are even more triangular:
I'll have more upstairs photos and the kitchen uploaded sometime over the weekend.
Monday, 25 February 2008
Reader who emailed me on Saturday-I deleted your message by accident...
So if you're the reader who emailed me on Saturday-you read this blog, you're married to a Chilean girl and you're interested in the loft conversions in Valparaiso we're doing-please can you send me another message. I only got to read half of it and I didn't even see your name. I deleted the message by accident and when I was trying to get the message out of the trash I proceeded to delete it permanently. I might have had a tipple. Anyway, hope to hear back from you soon...
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Dry Dock Version 1864.
I'm having trouble working out where this photo was taken from. By my reckoning, it must have been around Cerros Florida, Bellavista o Yungay but I can't be sure.
Anyway, the most interesting thing about the photo is the huge dry dock to the middle right. Not really being a sea-faring man myself, I hadn't ever really thought about when dry docks were invented, but it's easy to see that the system hasn't really changed much over the years. The photo below is obviously not from the same angle but shows the Sociber (Sociedad Iberica) dry dock that lives in the harbour these days. The Sociber is a little further around the harbour than the 1864 version was.
I wonder whether the sea-lions commandeered the dinky little boats in 1864 like they do today?
Another interesting thing to note is the building with a spire in the middle of the photo. This building was Latin America's first ever stock exchange.
Anyway, with a gay abandon so typical of Valparaiso today, the building was torn down in 1884 to make way for this pretty crappy statue to a Prat and the 'Heroes' of Iquique (there's a British flag wreath there because there was a Royal Navy ship in Valparaiso at the time).
The water used to reach all the way to its front steps until a couple of hundred metres of land were reclaimed. The following two photos- borrowed from Churchy's website-show what the area looked like in 1861 and 1874, with a small dock out the front of the building.
I haven't been able to find out when the land was eventually reclaimed. I'm guessing around the time the building was knocked down, in order to build the Plaza Sotomayor around it? Anyone know?
Anyway, the most interesting thing about the photo is the huge dry dock to the middle right. Not really being a sea-faring man myself, I hadn't ever really thought about when dry docks were invented, but it's easy to see that the system hasn't really changed much over the years. The photo below is obviously not from the same angle but shows the Sociber (Sociedad Iberica) dry dock that lives in the harbour these days. The Sociber is a little further around the harbour than the 1864 version was.
I wonder whether the sea-lions commandeered the dinky little boats in 1864 like they do today?
Another interesting thing to note is the building with a spire in the middle of the photo. This building was Latin America's first ever stock exchange.
Anyway, with a gay abandon so typical of Valparaiso today, the building was torn down in 1884 to make way for this pretty crappy statue to a Prat and the 'Heroes' of Iquique (there's a British flag wreath there because there was a Royal Navy ship in Valparaiso at the time).
The water used to reach all the way to its front steps until a couple of hundred metres of land were reclaimed. The following two photos- borrowed from Churchy's website-show what the area looked like in 1861 and 1874, with a small dock out the front of the building.
I haven't been able to find out when the land was eventually reclaimed. I'm guessing around the time the building was knocked down, in order to build the Plaza Sotomayor around it? Anyone know?
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Unlocking Your iPhone in Chile
I bought my iPhone way back in October and unlocked it for use with any SIM card without any hassles (apart from the waiting and hoping that it wouldn't brick itself). It never really occurred to me that other people in Chile might be wanting to unlock their iPhones as well until a friend proudly showed me his iPhone...I asked him what network he was on and he said he couldn't unlock it. Oh dear...anyway, as luck would have it, the latest unlocking tools for Out The Box (OTB) Versions 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 had just been released, so I pointed him in the right direction and hey presto! an unlocked iPhone.
So if you want to know how to unlock your iPhone for use with any sim card just take a look at the following links for step by step instructions. It's actually really easy and it's freeeeeeeeeeeee (although i'd suggest doing the decent thing and donating a couple of quid to the super-geeks whose hard work has made it all possible).
To upgrade from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 click here
The master resource for downgrading, upgrading, unlocking and modding your iPhone.
A forum full of useful resources but it's frustratingly slow at times for some reason.
This is the newest way of doing it and it's not a method i have personally tested.
Happy Unlocking..!
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