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!

2nd YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SAILING THE WORLD

By Pat Patrick • October 1, 2026
WOW!! I can't believe it has been two years of sailing around the World already for me and my fellow shipmates on the Villa Vie Odyssey! We left Belfast, Ireland back on September 30, 2024 and it has been such a great adventure to date! We have been to 201 different ports, some more than once, during those two years, with much more to come!

APOPO, SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

By Pat Patrick • September 29, 2026
Before coming to Cambodia , I sadly have to admit I was unaware of the landmine problems they face. On our first night in Siem Reap, where we hiked up the hill to try and see the sunset views, there was a small band of men playing instruments and our tuk tuk driver explained to me they were victims of landmine explosions who had lost limbs or their sight and were trying to make money via donations to support their families.

Ta Prohm Temple ( AKA Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), CAMBODIA

By Pat Patrick • September 28, 2026
I rallied for our last temple of the morning, because I heard this one was unique and I think it was my favorite. Ta Prohm was built starting in 1186 by King Jayavarman VII as a Buddhist monastery and university dedicated to the king's mother. It was left mostly un-restored so that huge banyan and silk cotton trees grow directly over and through the walls. In 2001, the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movie was filmed here.