Travel Tidbits - Atacama

It's Chile's moment right now. Why?  IT LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER PLANET- Mars rovers get tested here, enough said. It's the most otherworldly landscape on the surface of this planet, a place where salt flats stretch flat and white to the horizon, where geysers erupt from the earth at dawn at 14,000 feet of elevation, where the Valle de la Luna turns amber and rose and impossible gold as the sun drops behind the Andes each evening. WINE WILDNESS-The Colchagua Valley, Maipo Valley, and Casablanca Valley are producing wines that now appear on the lists of the most serious restaurants in New York, London, and Tokyo. The Carmenere grape, once thought extinct in Europe and quietly thriving in Chilean soil for 150 years before anyone noticed, has become one of the most exciting varietal conversations. DEEPLY DARK SKIES- The Atacama is home to some of the world's most powerful telescopes are here for exactly that reason but even with an iPhone, you're able to capture amazing photos of the Milky Way while Torres del Paine in Patagonia produces the kind of dramatic, granite spire, wind swept, light shifting landscape that photographers plan entire trips around. CULINARY DEPTHS NOBODY SEES COMING -Santiago is one of the most exciting food cities in the Americas right now and it has been almost entirely discovered by the rest of the world only in the last five years. A culinary journey through Chile moves from Santiago's restaurant scene to vineyard lunches in the valleys to asado dinners in Patagonia where the lamb has been slow roasting over open fire since morning. Vivaterra can plan some excellent itineraries for your trip!