2 September, 2010
San Pedro de Atacama revisited.
I remember San Pedro as being quite sleepy, with little accommodation available, but also with plenty of tourists and bars. It was sunny, warm, and pleasant. This time around it’s somewhat less sleepy, a lot bigger (perhaps 2x? 3x?)…however, it’s the off-season and that means few tourists compared to the number of restaurants, so dining […]
1 September, 2010
F%@*!?g Hell
I’ve done Arica > San Pedro before, albeit with a change at Calama. Thing is, I just remembered one of the more annoying bits… Chile has concerns over various food pests and as a consequence you not only get checked for fruit, cheese etc on boarding the bus, there are also occassional checkpoints. So at […]
31 August, 2010
Off to San Pedro
Just about to start packing for San Pedro de Atacama. I’ve been there before, so it’s a relatively familiar spot, though I didn’t spend long in the town. So this time I’m going to explore the locality a little more. I’m even thinking of sticking with it for a week or so and treating as […]
Dad´s Headstone
Had my father’s headstone delivered and installed yesterday. It was a fairly sombre moment, and my last goodbye to him. I won’t go back soon. Unfortunately the computer I’m trying to upload my photos to won’t play ball, so no pictures for the moment. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow when I get to San Pedro de Atacama. […]
30 August, 2010
Un Techo Para Chile
I struggled to find somewhere to eat this evening, and in the end decided that some more bad food would have to do. I have at least found a source of decent fruit at the market, so I’m getting vitamins and fibre now. Woo! The smells of Telepizza were calling me in, and I succumbed. […]
29 August, 2010
Pictures of Arica
Just a quick gallery showing pictures I’ve taken over the past few days in Arica. My only disappointment is that I’m still failing to get focus perfect on wide apertures and autofocus gets itself mixed up – so some otherwise great pictures aren’t usable at large sizes. I’ve just discovered that you can get a […]
Itinerary Options
I’m still trying to decide what to do next, but I think I’m forming a plan. I did debate staying here for all the time I have, teaching some web stuff maybe, for free. But nobody seemed that interested when I mentioned it, so I think it’s worth heading off. I’ve already been to San […]
Quiet Weekend in Arica
I’m staying put while I wait for the headstone to be finished and fitted, and consequently got to see an Arican weekend. There’s not a lot for me to do in many ways, so yesterday I spent some time going through all of my father’s papers and notebooks. I found evidence of one email address […]
Food!
Oh seriously, sometimes, when you travel the food is amazing. Sometimes, it looks like it might be a danger to your health…
28 August, 2010
The Story of Juanito
Here’s something… a smiling, happy and charming man who knew my father in Arica, lives just around the corner from the hotel I’m staying at. He actually lives in the cabin that guards a car park. Just him. He’s been married twice, I believe, but that’s all I know. So how can I tell his […]
Arrangements, part dos
Anyone who’s experienced the death of someone close to them will know that there is often a lot to do. No exceptions here, plus the added pressure of limited time. However, I’m not entirely unhappy about the time thing… makes me get things done. Cementaria Parque de Arica So, following the funeral I went yesterday […]
27 August, 2010
The Funeral
And so it came. In a way it’s weird… I always felt there were only two likely things to happen. First, I would find my father (or he would find me) and a period of reconciliation may take place. Closeness, perhaps never, but reconciliation would be fine. Second, I would never find him, and that […]
25 August, 2010
Arica – Day 1 – Arrangements
Phew… so what a day. It started off with a cold shower and a blandly unsatisfying breakfast of a cheese sandwich, juice and tea. But whilst eating a man came up to me and introduced himself as Joaquin Alvarez… the Honorary British Consul in Arica! It was an unexpected surprise… I thought I was meeting […]
Arica – Day 1
For no obvious reason I’ve woken up really early today. Maybe it’s something to do with the herd of elephants that evidently checked in around 1am. Or the, ahem, charmingly rustic plumbing that means the noise levels in here pick up markedly as the hotel awakes. But it’s not a bad hotel, the Hotel Amaru, […]
24 August, 2010
Chris Coveney…the Introduction
I’ve started writing this post in Amsterdam airport…I’m on my way to Arica in Chile where I’ll be (hopefully) burying my father, Chris, who died on the 19th of July. I say hopefully not because this is something I’m looking forward to but because I face a number of legal and monetary issues with the […]
6 August, 2010
Differential Pricing with Airlines
The traveller on a budget faces the very real problem that airlines employ differential pricing depending on where you are. Here’s my example – the next post will explain whether I got the lower price or not!
5 August, 2010
Lima, again.
A smidge under five years ago I created my first blog post as I started preparations for travel to South America. Today I’m preparing to travel to more or less the same destinations…but for sadder reasons. Two weeks ago my father died. A week ago a police officer knocked on my door to tell me […]
31 July, 2010
Me? Reading?
Couldn’t resist posting this one up quickly. I just wish I’d had the time to get the focus on his eyes, but by then the moment was lost and, frankly, I’ll take composition over sharpness any day….
19 July, 2010
WordCamp UK – Great Stuff + a Little Controversy
I went to WordCamp UK 2010 in Manchester… this is my write-up of the event, and its controversies along with my presentations…
12 July, 2010
Live Threaded Commenting on WP
At Interconnect IT / Spectacu.la my colleague James has developed a new version of the popular Spectacu.la Threaded Comments plugin. It’s not yet in release form, but you can grab it from the WordPress.org repository via svn if you know how at http://svn.wp-plugins.org/spectacula-threaded-comments/trunk/ I’m bringing it up here because I’ve decided to trial the plugin […]
26 May, 2010
Gateshead/Newcastle Pics from Thinking Digital (part 1)
Just a few quick shots from last night. I’d arrived late for the first afternoon thanks to a failed gearbox mount (thanks for that, VW Warrington) but at least did get there thanks to a courtesy car (also thanks, VW Warrington!) that got me here just a couple of hours late… Anyway, to the pics. […]
19 May, 2010
WordPress Performance, Make it 3x Quicker!
I’d started to notice that my site could often be slow to load – other sites on the same server weren’t suffering the same way, so I wanted to document a simple way in which one can identify performance issues on the site. This is one of them.
