January 17, 2025

IQUIQUE, CHILE - Town Square below

Today 4 of us hired an Uber driver to take us to Humberstone, a UNESCO world heritage ghost town out in the Atacama Desert.  This once thriving town was built for the extraction of Saltpeter or potassium nitrate - a component of gunpowder, fertilizer and used in food preservation. Unfortunately, most of the displays were just in Spanish, but I could figure out the basic history of what went on - the employees were being taken advantage of and they had an uprising, that basically ended Humberstone. Place was huge!

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Next we drove out further into the desert to see The Atacama Giant or Gigante de Atacama or the Tarapaca Giant an anthropomorphic geoglyph. It is the largest geoglyph with a human representation in the world at 390 feet. It is considered an archaeological monument and cultural heritage of Chile. It is believed to be a shaman or deity or spiritual figure. Regardless, our uber driver had never seen and he hiked with us to the desert viewing spot. A very different kind of day!

TIOMAN ISLAND, MALAYSIA

By Pat Patrick • July 6, 2026
Fun day in the waters of Tioman Island, Malaysia snorkeling with friends. Life is good! It was nothing fancy, a boat & captain, who spoke minimal English and barely interacted with us, for roughly 7 hours. We started the outing spotting a group of dolphins and was quickly at anchor drop 1 of 6. The distances between the 6 snorkel spots was minimal, which gave us lots of time in the water (at least 45 minutes, at each spot) with an added stop for a lunch break at local restaurants. Even the restaurants were fast and efficient, definitely used to catering to the boat crowd.

HAPPY 4th of JULY from SE ASIA SEA!

By Pat Patrick • July 4, 2026
Wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July! Here on the Odyssey we celebrated in the SE Asia Sea on our way to Tioman Island, Malaysia . We have such a talented and dedicated group of residents here, they put together a fun hour of things to celebrate and embrace a lot of what we collectively love about the USA. Even our residents from other countries - Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany , etc. joined in the fun! ( I lent my flag below for decorations)

BINTAN, INDONESIA - BUDDHIST TEMPLE

By Pat Patrick • July 2, 2026
Vihara Avalokiteshvara Graha or Guan Yin Temple is near 500 Lohan, so we also toured the grounds of this large Temple complex. It's dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy and is one the tallest brass statues of her in SE Asia. She is just over 55' tall, coated in 22 carat gold and is surrounded by scenic dragon fruit plantations. The tile work is intricate and textured with great details. The whole place is very tranquil and calming for meditation and prayer.