Well, it’s only two days – or less, depending on your time zone – to the ending of the 13th Baktun of the current Great Cycle of the Maya Long Count Calendar, at least for those most enthusiastic about the event (many archaeologists and other Maya students say the date actually is more likely to […]
Author: Nick Rider
I am a freelance travel and feature writer, editor and translator of Spanish and Catalan, based in London, UK. I’ve written whole guidebooks, one on Northern France and another on the Yucatan and southern Mexico, for which I spent many months seeking out pyramids in heat-struck villages and counting pelicans against the sky. I’ve also contributed as writer and/or editor to many other books on Spain, France, Mexico, the UK and other parts of the world for Time Out, Dorling Kindersley, Insight Guides, Michelin Guides and other publishers, and written for the Guardian, New Statesman, The Sunday Times, inflight magazines such as Let’s Go (Ryanair) and German Wings, and other outlets. And I’ve reviewed more restaurants for Time Out’s London Eating & Drinking Guide than I can count.
Fresh out of the museum blocks: The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, Mérida, Yucatán
Whether or not you believe that something very special/awful/whatever is due to happen when the Maya Great Calendar Cycle ends on 21 December 2012, for the Yucatán’s capital of Mérida it will have one lasting presence: a brand new and very state of the art museum, the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. Pushed through by […]
Al Pacino in North London, N8
Al Pacino has a store on Hornsey High Street in north London, N8. It says so on the sign, with a little image of Al in Scarface mode. The owner, who’s Turkish, says he got the shop off his cousin, who’s a friend of a cousin of Al’s who still lives in Italy. And that […]
Driving in Torres del Paine, Chile
There seems to be a fair amount of confusion and a lack of clear information about the possibilities of driving independently around the Torres del Paine national park in southern Chile. Some people still seem to suggest that this is tough to do on your own, and that to get to and around the park […]
Birthplace of the spud, patata, papa or potato: Isla Chiloé, Chile
The island of Chiloé in southern Chile is not a place that promotes itself very aggressively in the world, but it is quietly proud of having given the entire world the potato. History traditionally holds that potatoes were first domesticated around 10,000 years ago in southern Peru and Bolivia, where they were first encountered by […]
Tried to get the Navimag ferry, but…
For a long time I’ve heard great things about the Navimag ferry, which runs from Central Chile’s southernmost point at Puerto Montt for three days down through fiords and glaciers to Chilean Patagonia at Puerto Natales, just south of the Torres del Paine. A trip of a lifetime, I’ve heard from so many. Though I […]
Valparaíso Fish
Foodie reasons for visiting Chile, number 1: fish and seafood Firstly, because they’re so good, and the centre of much the most interesting Chilean food; and second, because, at least for anyone from the Northern/Atlantic hemispheres, they’re so fascinatingly new and unfamiliar. The most popular fish are reineta, congrío and corvina, and a star among the range of shellfish are machas. […]
The Art of Deserts: the Atacama
Deserts are giant sculptures. In the arid world stripped of normal fertility, moisture and softness, the comfortable shapes of more habitable landscapes give way to an extraordinary range of abstract forms and textures, stripped of any covering to make them more amenable to human touch. This is one of the things that give deserts […]
Santiago en Fiestas
It’s surprising to find that Santiago, capital of Chile (not de Cuba or de Compostela), can look a little forbidding at first sight, at least if you head straight for the centre. The presidential seat the Palacio de la Moneda, a neatly-proportioned neo-classical mansion typical of the last burst of building of the Spanish Empire […]
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