Highlights Peru and Chile (1)

In May and June of 2013 I made a round trip through Peru, Chile and Bolivia. In my blog Check in...  you find an extensive impression (pictures and some text) of this journey.

Here now links to the different posts covering the first 11 days of the trip.

Getting there.... flying from São Paulo (Brasil) to Lima (Peru).

At the end of the day: The seaside in Lima

Going south on the PanAmericana to Ica

Living along the Panam

The sand dunes of Huacachina - a small Sahara

The Ballestas Islands

From Ica to Nazca: An ever changing landscape

The Nazca lines

Spiral water wells 

Mummies in de Chauchilla necropolis

Arequipa the White City

 

The market at Arequipa ..... potatoes!!

The convent of Santa Catalina

The first high pass - 4910 meters

Cruz del Condor

From Arequipa to Arica: crossing the border to Chile

Arica: The famous Eiffel was here....

 

Rayen Kvyeh, poet from the Mapuche people

The Valley of the Moon in Chile

The border between Chile and Bolivia (Bolivian side)

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Collecting the knowledge of the world….

That was what libraries were about in ancient times. We all remember the stories about the library in Alexandria in ancient Egypt and the fire that destroyed all that knowledge and culture.

The very modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina is (off course) located in Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria is the second largest city of Egypt is situated on the Mediterranean Sea and is Egypt's largest port. 

View from the library 

The roof - facing the Mediterranean

The boulevard in Alexandria, Egypt

The roof provides lots of light

A palace among libraries.

In the Netherlands the library of the Royal Tropical Institute had to be closed after the subsidies for this institution were diminished. Its collection is unique. A small part of the collection went to Dutch institutions. On October 31 (2013) was announced that the bulk of the collection would go to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt.

In this magnificent library the books of the Tropical Institute will get a new home.





The walls of the building are covered with the different symbols that are used by different languages.  

The gold of autumn...

Sometimes we are lucky. 

This year we had a lot of perfect autumn days. The temperature was almost like summer, the sun was shining and the leaves on the trees were going bright yellow and orange. Because we had some friends staying, we had to go sightseeing. But what a sight it was this year!! 

Most of the canals in Amsterdam were decorated with golden trees.

The trees at the Amstelveld are superb.

 In The Hague, in the small square in front of the Royal Palace, the statue of our former queen Wilhelmina admires the changing of the seasons in front of the Gothic hall of the Palace on the Kneuterdijk.

 At the rear of the hall the formal garden is shining with light.

 The driveway of the beautiful Lange Voorhout (at the end the Palace Lange Voorhout) is carpeted with leaves. Fit for a King!

The Plein (The Hague) is surrounded by yellow limetrees. During lunchtime the cafes and restaurants here fill up quickly with civil servants of the nearby ministries. Every hour of sunshine is welcome. Let's enjoy before the autumn storms arrive.

In the polders of Kinderdijk the reeds are already waving in the wind. 

An elegant bridge

The Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam is a magnificent example of bridge architecture. Finally we were there on a beautiful day. A blue sky with white clouds.

The best view you get from the “Kop van Zuid” (a good place to have a coffee or something else). The complete bridge with the sun shining on it. On a dark day the scenery is much more gray.

All sorts of traffic go over the bridge. Pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, busses, trams….. 

The train used to have its own bridge “De Hef”. It has been memorized in a movie "De Brug" by the famous movie maker Joris Ivens in 1928. Now there is a tunnel for trains underneath the river. (sorry for the balustrade of the bridge in this picture, but it was impossible to cross the street.)

The other side..... as behind a curtain.

The structure is very elegant. 

But still there are some people who think it is just a fancy bicycle stand.....