14 Juillet in Vaison-la-Romaine

A few shots from the garden's view point, over the fireworks of Vaison-la-Romaine, for Bastille day, seemed like they were thrown out just for us! 

To the left, the medieval town and castle

India

Introducing guest-star blogger: my other half, flying winemaker and marathon traveler, who shares here some impresions of India...

Taj Mahal... less than 200km from New Dehli, but 5 hours by car! On a 3-day business trip, I decided to hire a car for the day...

Amazing what you can do with an iPhone, isn't it?

As beautiful inside and outside!

Guess this explains a bit better why it takes so long to get there... and forget it when a cow decides to stop in the middle of the road for a rest...

I will be back to India - and this time, I promise, for more than 72 hours - and with the family!

Christophe

Atacama's last adventure

I know you might start to get bored with all those pictures of the desert, but bear with me, this is the last Atacama post: a 5h horseback ride through a Canyon and then up a cattle path, the one the cattle used to take to walk from Argentina to Calama and Antofagasta, that's up a very steep climb to a plateau, and then back down through a sand dune to the local Death Valley, a bliss!!!

Pukara de Quitor, 

ancient indian fortress before the Inca conquest

through the Valley to Catarpe: my guide looks like a real cow-boy

and through the Canyon:

 I look like a real tourist..

Some scenes of "The motorcycle diaries" telling the story of Che Guevara, were filmed in that Canyon

and up the cattle trail,  the pics don't really show how steep this path was, even more impressive when being at riders' heigth.

On top of the plateau

and looking at the sand dune to Valle de la Muerte

So, I don't know if it's the Valley's name that inspired them, but I think that at this point our horses were whispering something I didn't ear in each other's ear, like "I'll race you down" or "the first one down gets a free beer", as a few minutes later, going down the dune, my horse who had been pretty relaxed until then suddenly took off like a rocket and over passed the guide without showing any signs of slowing down......Thank god my very ancient riding skills came back to me at that point to save me and my camera from landing in the sand!

managed to take a couple of pics before loosing control of my cheeky beast

That's it for Chile, see you back in Europe!

PS: in case you are travelling to San Pedro and are looking to horseback ride, I do recommend Rancho Cactus, they are nice and have very good horses for all levels: http://www.rancho-cactus.cl/

Adventure in the Atacama: madmen in action

Awesome landscape wasn't the only draw for this trip. It actually all started with a conversation about what to do next, i.e. after the Mont Ventoux climb, and the Alpes d'Huez etape (of the tour the France for those who don't bike nor have a biking freak in the family). So my husband Christophe came up with this idea of biking up the Paso de Jama, the road that links the Chilean to the Argentinian Altiplano through the Cordillera de los Andes, and culminates at 4250m (the road, not the mountains, they peak nearer 5500)...

So here they are training @ Taltal, at sea level..

...and after a few days of training at 2600 m on the Altiplano, here's the D day:

on departure, just outside San Pedro

...just a bit to go..

...and about 25km  up the road...

..getting very close...

...and there...

...the cheering crowd:

... bravo to our happy madmen...

 don't even try to imagine what's going to be next.....