PORKANDCORN: A Man & His Duck Explore South America

[atravlr]

I am heading back to Santiago this spring, where exactly is that pool / apartment located? I know that hill in the background.

[Marine By Choice]

Originally Posted by dasvis

I want to see that shiny new bike get dirty.
HOW 'BOUT THOSE OREGON DUCKS?

It was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor.

[joenuclear]

Originally Posted by MarinByChoice

It was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor.

It was a line from Animal House.

[dasvis]

Originally Posted by MarinByChoice

It was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor.

Animal house .....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI

[porkandcorn]

i prefer "15 is my limit on schnitzengrübens," but thanks for the brief digression anyway.

[pceire32]

Quack ! In !

Ride safe.

[porkandcorn]

i wish i had a bunch of amazing photos to post, but i don't. yesterday, i met up with 2 of the guys who shared the cost of the freight container from los angeles, california (there are a total of 5 motos and one SUV - we all hooked up through ADVrider). these good fellows are buddies and both recently retired. also first-timers in ameríca del sur. they are headed north to catch the last few legs of the dakar rally before it finishes here in santiago. sounds tempting, especially now that i unfortunately hear our bikes won't likely clear chilean customs until january 17… hmmmm… dakar?


container shipping brought us together by porkandcorn, on Flickr

today, i just wandered around on foot all day. so much for a "ride report" - this is a foot report. my plan was to go to the top of the cerro san cristobal, a big hill downtown, to get some shots of the city. the front desk guy at my building said it would be very busy, and the smog would kill the view. anyway, this set off the "tourists alert" region of my hippocampus, which i believe has been medically identified recently. so, instead, here is a lovely picture of the city from google (in the winter, i assume). maybe i'll break down and get my own shot eventually, but i don't want to keep anyone waiting due to my laziness or phobias.


view from cerro san cristobal, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

so instead, i met up with a fellow ADVrider, crested butte-rtw, after he informed me he was in town and graciously agreed to meet up for… you guessed it… more beers. here's his blogspot page and his website: www.wheresfletch.com. great guy and an inspiring traveler.

fletch has been riding for over a year, all the way down the americas from colorado. he likes to linger in places and rest his buns like i do, so we are going to sit down with my maps before i head to the coast so that he can lay some good road/places tips on me. we felt like long lost brothers with our baldness. too bad i shaved my beard last week before i left. i was worried about it getting all gummed up with pisco sours, the continentally favored adult beverage.

we met up in the bellavista neighborhood, which is known as the bohemian/tourist hang out. it was fine and pretty relaxed on a monday afternoon.


Untitled by porkandcorn, on Flickr

after fletch and i split, i walked east of providencia to check out the the gran torre santiago (great santiago tower) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._South_America
which is now the tallest building in latin america. it's the same building you can see from my building's pool deck. it is huge. 984 ft, 64 stories.


edificio gran torre, under construction, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


gran torre santiago, chile - tallest building in latin america by porkandcorn, on Flickr

i went out for dinner like the locals do, at 10pm. i found a nice little courtyard full of people. and found a spot in the corner. the sushi place was good, though i don't recall the name. had a couple of labored conversations with some people in spanish to get some tips for my remaining days. going out alone is an exercise in confidence building. not a lot of 6' 4" bald dudes wandering around santiago, so it's pretty clear who's a gringo and who's not. people stare, which i am getting used to. once i get a bit more comfortable, and my spanish legs under me, i should be able to turn that into an asset.


plaza of restaurants, av. providencia, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

i really should be getting to bed - it's past 3am. i guess that is portland-time working against me.

[porkandcorn]

i've been struggling with the tedium of posting mirrored reports from ADV/HUBB over to Blogger/Blogspot - which i decided after some research was the easiest place to do a stand-alone blog. as many of you know, ADV to HUBB is easy - just copy and paste the "code" from the edit/compose page and plop it in the other edit/compose page. but this was not working from ADV/HUBB to Blogger/Blogspot. the html code was scrambling, the photo/video links were breaking, and i was a general pain in the ass.

(incidentally, i use Flickr to host my photos, and YouTube to host my videos. it's been working great. Flickr does charge $25.00/year to host any photo count over 200, so be aware you are locking yourself into that.)

i was talking about this annoyance with fletch, crested butte-rtw (ADV), and he figured out a solution by accident in the last year of his blogging. he is now my hero, because he has saved me and possibly many more who read this, the pain of re-doing every ADV/HUBB entry on Blogger/Blogspot. thank you fletch.

so it's actually really simple. too simple:

1. after you publish your entry on ADV or HUBB, just select and (copy) the text and photos from the actual public view page:


adv select by porkandcorn, on Flickr

2. then, in your Blogger/Blogspot edit/compose page, just freaking paste it in there.

3. if you use the Asylum 2.0 page layout (the black one) like i do on ADV, it will make the text white and the background black when you paste into Blogger/Blogspot. to correct this, simply select the entire post in Blogger/Blogspot and use the text and background menu drop-downs to change the background to white, and the text to black.


blogger select by porkandcorn, on Flickr

4. you're done. might be a couple of spacing issues to fine tune, but it's a hell of a lot easier than doing it from scratch. it will probably work on other blog platforms like Tumblr, etc.

everyone who has been struggling with this like i have, owes fletch a beer.


blogger page by porkandcorn, on Flickr

[GoinPostal]

your last post got me thinking........I tried to copy paste from my blog on Wordpress to ADV, but the pics were just massive and wouldn't work. So......................I guess I should try from ADV to Wordpress, hopefully that will work. Am enjoying your RR and looking forward to more!

[DRRambler]

Originally Posted by porkandcorn

everyone who has been struggling with this like i have, owes fletch a beer.

I'll buy fletch 2 beers!
I just tested this on my wordpress blog and it works. It truly is simple but I too was struggling with this. Thank you

[porkandcorn]

de nada!

[crestedbutte-rtw]

Originally Posted by AlbertaStrom

I'll buy fletch 2 beers!
I just tested this on my wordpress blog and it works. It truly is simple but I too was struggling with this. Thank you

Originally Posted by porkandcorn

i was talking about this annoyance with fletch, crested butte-rtw (ADV), and he figured out a solution by accident in the last year of his blogging. he is now my hero, because he has saved me and possibly many more who read this, the pain of re-doing every ADV/HUBB entry on Blogger/Blogspot. thank you fletch.

everyone who has been struggling with this like i have, owes fletch a beer.

Thanks for the Shout out brother!!

Awesome meeting up with you yesterday!! See you Thursday for Cerviche and Beers!!
Laters Fletch

[GastonUSAChile]

Wow, believe me I lived since I born 15 years of my life in Santiago, plus thousand of visits after that. Never ever saw the Andes with snow in December-January.
It is unique and no doubt, the effect of global warming but opposite way.

As for the tall building , it will be called 'Sanhattan', the tallest building in South America in a country where a couple of years ago had the hardest earthquake in history after Japan ( 8.5 )

[GastonUSAChile]

Originally Posted by GastonUSAChile

Wow, believe me I lived since I born 15 years of my life in Santiago, plus thousand of visits after that. Never ever saw the Andes with snow in December-January.
It is unique and no doubt, the effect of global warming but opposite way.

As for the tall building , it will be called 'Sanhattan', the tallest building in South America in a country where a couple of years ago had the hardest earthquake in history after Japan ( 8.5 )

Just cannot be possible. Is that photo from the new tower 'Sanhattan' from another photo? Santiago had 30 degrees celcius the whole month !! Either May or September could be.
Actually the trees are shown brown, so it can not be summer. One photo has the big poster on all sides , the other not.
The shot from below is the real one where the curtain glass wall is almost to the top.

A perceptive architect

[porkandcorn]

the beautiful thing about the adventure motorcycling community, is that wherever you go, you have family. i invited one of my container-mates, "bear," to stay with me in santiago. i knew he has rushed together this trip. he had a weekend to prepare everything, whereas i had a year. turns out that we are the same age more or less, and that he is the engineer responsible for the focus mechanism of the camera on the james web space telescope. if you are a astronomy nerd like i am, then you will know that this is a big deal. i cried during the hubble imax movie, because the beauty of what was accomplished with that device overwhelmed me. the james webb is the next generation scope after the hubble, with many many times the resolution. it launches somewhere around 2018, i believe.


james web space telescope team by porkandcorn, on Flickr


hubble deep field image of cluster of galaxies by porkandcorn, on Flickr


hubble image of sombrero galaxy by porkandcorn, on Flickr

so in addition to having the coolest job ever, bear happens also he's a great guy and we've been having an amazing time exploring chile together. of course there have been the expected pitchers of cristal beer to have conversations about the effects of traveling on the soul and mind. there is so much to absorb, so many new things to see everyday, that time effectively slows down. i've not even been here for a week and it easily feels like twice that.


pork and bear, telephone box bar, providencia, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


bear at telephone box bar, providencia, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


telephone box bar, providencia, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

visually, it's overwhelming. he and i have both noticed that when we shut our eyes for naps, in the blackness, there are images, almost like hallucinations, in black and white - images of people and places we've seen, people we've met. very intense and hard to describe. mentally, we are both pushed to our limits. we could admittedly use more sleep, but just processing everyday things is challenging.


tangled powerlines, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


tangled power lines, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

we only had a couple of days to explore santiago together. near plaza de armas, in santiago, we when to a famous 100 year old bar called la piojera - which translates to the "louse pit". it was a real stick to the floor kind of place, with some real characters. felt like the bar in that scene in the movie airplane, where the girl scouts are in a fist fight, and the old man gets stabbed on the dance floor. they serve a drink there called a terremoto (earthquake), that is a base of grappa wine with ice cream and fernet. it was disgusting, and very powerful. i can see why they need the sign that you see behind the bar.


la piojera bar, plaza de armas, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


la piojera bar, plaza de armas, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

we ran into some kind of student protest in the plaza. i guess college students everywhere have too much time. there were a lot of riot police around, but they were all just hanging out.


riot vehicle, plaza de armas, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

friday morning, we took the santiago metro to the outskirts of town, to the pajaritos bus station to catch a ride to valparaiso. we have a meeting with our group's customs agent on monday, but we wanted to spend the weekend at the beach anyway.


pajaritos bus station, santiago, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

valparaiso, and it's sister cities to the north (vina del mar, playa renaca, playa concón) are were santiaguinos go during these high summer months to relax and party. i also here that lots of argentinians come here, because it's cheaper than the beaches of brazil. we stayed the first night at an over-priced shit-hole in vina del mar, but are moving today to downtown valparaiso, which is where you want to be. "valpo" as it is called, is a UNESCO world heritage site. looking forward to getting some photos and posted a report.


valparaiso, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr


pitcher of schop, vina del mar, chile by porkandcorn, on Flickr

my new plan is to joint bear for the last two stages of the DAKAR rally, that are working their way down toward valpo, before they turn inland to finish in santiago on january 20. getting pretty excited about that. i should be reunited with my bike on tuesday or wednesday and actually be able to start riding.