Category: cruise

Selfie Sticks and Petrohué Waterfalls

the selfie and me, me, me

MichaelStephenWills11 Comments

Petrohué Waterfalls are on the tourist track, traffic on the walkway was heavy on the southern hemisphere summer day, February 2016, of our visit. People were relaxed and friendly, the walkway well designed and safe. The wide angle lens was mounted on my Canon dslr, with a circular graduated neutral density filter. This is a filter with the upper third restrictive to light fading gradually to clear and mounted on a ring to rotated to cover the bright portion of the view. I used this successfully in the previous postings to obtain an exposure of the bright sky and darker land (for example, “Orsorno Volcano and Tourists.”). I could not resist capturing our fellow tourists. With a wide angle lens it is easy to do candid shots, such as the following. Most people are unaware of the capability of the 24 mm wide angle lens.

Click any photograph for a larger view.

Unfortunately, in the rush of the crowd and moment the dual use of a configuration for landscape and (candid) street photography lead to mistakes. I did not have the lens hood attached correctly, you can see the hood in each corner. Then there is the circular, graduated filter. In the above photograph, the shaded portion runs across the lower left to the upper right. The subject is watching me photograph the water.

Here, I turned around from photographing the Orsorno Volcano to capture these selfie fans leaning against the railing to capture themselves and the volcano through they are in the minority. The trail is a “dead end”, rising to the point above the falls, where I am standing.

Selfie Stick

We started back down towards the point over the incredible emerald green water. There were three teenagers having fun with a selfie stick. Around them are people entranced by the water, as we werel.

Smile!! You’re on Candid Camera

Headed back, I thought that curving tree was a good subject. Turned out, a fellow tourist heightened the interest of the shot. You see him, leaning against the railing next to the tree in the mid-distance of the following shot.

Here I am, looking back toward the child of Orsorno and the entire length of the observation walkway filled with people.

The Striking Colors of Petrohué Waterfalls

Emerald Water, colored by glacial minerals

MichaelStephenWills24 Comments

Glacial meltwater from Lake Todos los Santos (All Saints Lake) forms Petrohué River and, where the river flows over lava from the Orsorno Volcano, Petrohué Falls. This set of photographs features the emerald color the river originating from glacial minerals.

Click any photograph for a larger view.

A strangeness of these photographs is this is the middle of February, Chilean summertime.

Force of Nature

Another strangeness, not readily apparent, is the effect of the Coriolis force. Here in the Northern Hemisphere water (any moving mass, really) moving perpendicular to the rotating surface of the earth (a property of water is the surface follows the contour of the solid surface over which it flows) will tend to flow in a clockwise direction. Crossing the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere the tendency reverses, tending to flow to the left, counter-clockwise. With some imagination the effect of the Coriolis force can be seen in the following photograph.

Orsorno Volcano and Petrohué Waterfalls

MichaelStephenWills23 Comments

Petrohué Waterfalls (pronounced petro-WEH) is within Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park of Chile. For me, this view was one of the draws of our entire trip, that stratovolcano and its craggy children in the distance the same type as Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that wiped Pompeii off the map in 79 AD. Described by Pliny, the eruption type is named even today “plinian,” the most destructive and violent of all volcanic eruptions.

It was an irrational happiness I felt walking this place, I still smile to myself remembering it.

Click photograph for a larger view.
The mastery of water over volcanic rock deposited by ancient eruptions of the Orsorno Volcano.

Gulf of Penas

Rounding the Aisen Headland

MichaelStephenWills4 Comments
Entering Penas Gulf
Rounding the Aysen Region headland of the Penas Gulf. Next land will be the Magellian Region extending to Cape Horn. In the Penas Gulf we will enter the Messier Channel and the fjords.

Get More from My Online Gallery

Taken with a tripod mounted Sony DSLR A 700 DT 18-200 variable lens set to 18 mm.  1/40 second at f4.5 ISO 6400.  The sun was still low, after sunrise with gathering storm clouds from the terrace of our state room (a moving ship).

Our early morning traverse of the Penas Gulf was smooth sailing in route for Tarn Bar, entrance to the Messier Channel. We’ll pass Wager Isle where May 14, 1741 the H.M.S. Wager wrecked, stranding the crew. Speaking to the conditions on board, immediately some of the crew broke into the “Spirit Room, got drunk, armed themselves and began looting, dressing up in officers’ clothes and fighting,” many drowning the next day when the Wager flooded and sank.

The original fronts piece to Byron’s Narrative; “Being an Account of the Shipwreck of The Wager and the Subsequent Adventures of Her Crew.”

The remaining 140 officers and crew manned the boat to make for shore in the Patagonian winter. Five years later, midshipman John Byron, grandfather to the poet Lord Byron, made it back to England with the Captain David Cheap. Just west of Wager Isle is the larger Byron Isle, named in his honor.

On this south heading our cabin on the port side faced east. In these early morning hours, I set up on the stateroom balcony, so for better or worse there is no views of either Wager or Byron Isle.

Entering Messier Channel from the Gulf of Penas is the next blog in this series.

Lighthouse on Cape Rapier is the previous blog in this series.

The contents of this blog are Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills

Back To School, Uruguay

A late summer Friday evening

MichaelStephenWills19 Comments

Since 1877 primary education in Uruguay is universal, compulsory and free. These days students receive free education through university, literacy is the highest in South America at 95%, equally for males and females.

These photographs are from a cruise around South American my wife, Pam, and I enjoyed February / March 2016 on the Oceania ship Regatta. This was the evening of February 26, 2016, a Friday, in the city Montevideo, Uruguay.

This image is the theme of this blog, “back to school”. On Avenue Gral Eugenio Garzon of the Colon neighborhood of Montevideo a mother and four daughters discuss a shop window featuring “back to school” clothing and necessaries. The children range in age from pre-school to teen. This is evidently a serious discussion about preparing for the school year which starts in March for Uruguay.

A government program launched in 2007 expands Information and Communication technologies in primary schools with these goals:
— To distribute technology,
— To promote knowledge,
— To generate social equity.

Called Ceibal, after a tree native to Uruguay, the program was a success. From 2009 – 2012 450,000 laptops, popularly named “”ceibalitas”, were delivered to children coordinate with teacher training and a monitoring and evaluation model for assessing the impact nationally. Ceibal is the acronym for “Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea” (Educational Connectivity/Basic Computing for Online Learning in English).

These photographs build on the theme of the positive influence education has on the lives of Uruguayans, many of whom live in poverty.

A family gathering in their yard on Avenue Gral Eugenio Garzon, enjoying a cool late summer evening.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Traffic and a gas station. People were out and about, walking and conversing. There is a makeshift trailer attached to the motorcycle, behind is a large truck.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Storefront with customer and man loitering on wall. A mini-Honda all terrain vehicle is on display.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Mate is a beverage enjoyed throughout South America. Here companions enjoy a warm summer evening with a thermos of hot water and mate gourd behind a restaurant, their view across the train tracks and the Colon rail station is of a playground and playing fields.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

A family of very young soccer players coming from practice with teammates. The sponsors of lucky number 7 are the bank Banrisul and Tramontina, a kitchenware manufacturer.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

We waited to board an historic train and shared the station with Montevideans waiting for a passenger train. Here are two families: a mother and pre-teen daughter colorfully dressed, a grandmother and grandson. Behind them are the playing fields and playground.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

A passenger train heading north passed while we waited for our ride to begin. Curiosity shines from this child’s eyes.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Happy families greeted us with waves and smiles during our trip to downtown Montevideo.

Some of the homes along the rail line. Pools such as that are popular in cities. We saw a great many on the streets in Lima, Peru.

Reaction to the historic train from a group of young men.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Curious playmates gather at the end of the road.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

A well attended playground.

Back To School -- CLICK ME!!!!

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Glacier!!!

experience a glacier of Patagonia

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments
Two person ship launch against glacier base.
Summer was the season for our visit to the edge of eternal, for now, Patagonian ice fields.  Remnants from the last ice age, larger than some (small) countries.  The site is surprisingly noisy with sharp, explosive, ice crackles.
More amazing even than the sounds, the dark shading on the ice is volcanic dust from recent eruptions of many cones. 

Click this link for my series of posts about Chilean fjords and glaciers we visited February 2016.

Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

With and Without People

always without water

MichaelStephenWills

Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve

Getty requires a signed photo release for each human in a photograph.

For this, the single best overview from our time with the Pintado Geoglyphs, I carefully painted out every human figure, our fellow tourists.

Here are the versions with and without human figures.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click me for the first post of this series.

Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Geoglyph Panorama

Rain never falls here

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve

Eternal high clouds that never yield water, we visited these hills just off the Pan American highway, to view shapes formed by moving stones.

The shapes are multifarious, mysterious and majestic. Hundreds of them, rendered for reasons known only to the makers.

I stitched together five images to yield an overall impression.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click me for the first post of this series.

Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Ghost of a Ghost Town

A place that exists because of water and a roa

MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Adolfo Tapia Live Here (?)

The Spanish word pintados translates to painted in English. There are many references to the word, in one it is a war loving tribe known for tattoos. Here, it is the name of a deserted town on an abandoned railroad running roughly parallel to the Pan American highway. As we passed through en route to Geoglifos de Pintados, I captured these shots of the ruined town.

The handprinted sign above the window, top photograph, says in translation, “Here lived the Adolfo Tapia Family, 1940-1956, F.F C.C. del Estado.” Searches on Adolfo Tapia turned up nothing, all we know is the sign attributes the designation to the state government.

The hill of the geoglyphs are the background, some of the figures are visible. There will be more in later posts.

The railroad served the many Saltpeter factories dotting the Tarapacá region. To my knowledge all were closed in the mid-20th century.

Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Click me for the first post of this series.

Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved