so santiago has welcomed me back with open arms...and a major power outage. my good friend claudio posted some snapshots of the chaos yesterday on his blog, if you want to take a peek. basically, the grid went down, cutting power to approximately half the city's stoplights, as well as its most heavily used metro line...during the height of santiago rush hour.

i don't know if legends of this city's congestion have reached the northern hemisphere, but it's bad enough even with a functioning infrastructure. basically, the thousands of commuters who normally use the subway attempted to flood the buses, which weren't moving anyway since the intersections were clogged. a nice example of urban paralysis. add to that road rage of epic proportions. i always wondered why people honk when doing so clearly doesn't produce any positive change in the world (it's not like the people caught in front of you want to be immobile, either)...but in yesterday's case, i thought it was for the better. if drivers didn't have some innocuous way of releasing their frustration, i really think they would have resorted to mowing over sidewalk pedestrians or punching each other out eventually.

in counterpoint to this tale of urban madness, i offer a tranquil desert scene. this one was shot at sunset, during my bike ride through the valle de la luna, near san pedro. i'll post a few more as i sort through my obscene amount of photos during the next couple days.