Airline Transports Herd of African Elephants (PHOTOS)

Earlier this month, LAN Airlines transported an orphaned herd of nine African elephants between the ages of four and nine years old from Namibia to Mexico, where the animals will find their new home at the African Safari Zoo in Puebla.A statement from the airline says each elephant traveled with ample space and was under the constant care of veterinarians. Just like human passengers, the elephants traveled while awake during their trip on the Boeing 777 freighter, which has the capacity to transport up to 104 tons. Full-grown male African elephants weigh between 10,000 and 13,300 pounds, making them the largest living terrestrial animals on Earth.

According to the press release, LAN has also successfully transported giraffes, rhinos, lions and zebras from Africa, as well as wallabies, dolphins, bees, deer and horses (of which the airline once transported 45 in a single flight). Friday’s flight was the largest African elephant shipment the airline made in its 80-year history.

Images courtesy LAN Airlines.

Wine lovers can win ski trip to Chile this summer with “Sips & Slopes” contest

If wine and schussing are your thang, unleash your inner poet and enter the Wines of Chile “Sips & Slopes” contest. The rules are simple: compose and tweet an original haiku about Chile, using the hashtag #SipsSlopes. The lucky winner and a guest will win a five–night stay at Chile’s largest ski resort, Valle Nevado, including two round-trip tickets on LAN airlines. As you might expect, being wined and dined is included.

Chile is well-known for its stellar skiing and other outdoor recreational pursuits (both winter and summer), as well as for being “un pais de poetas,” a country of poets. Literary greats such as Pablo Neruda and Isabel Allende are the inspiration behind the “Sips & Slopes” contest, which is to showcase Chile’s reputation as a rising star of South American wine production.

The country’s diverse landscapes and topography provide ideal microclimates for the production of a wide range of varietals, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Carmenere, Chardonnay, and Viognier. Where Chile was once merely a mass producer of low- to mid-range wines, today it’s a serious contender against the high-end wines of Argentina’s famed Mendoza Valley across the border.

Chilean wine regions such as the Maipo, Aconcagua, and Colchagua Valleys are drawing visitors from all over the world, who come for the Mediterranean climate, rural pastimes such as biking, horseback riding, and hiking, and excellent (and affordable) dining, wine tasting, and accommodation options.

Applicants to “Sips & Slopes” will be judged on “creativity, originality, and adherence to haiku format.” Entries will be accepted until June 30th (only one per person and Twitter account, please); the winner will be announced on or around July 7th. Buena suerte!

[Photo credit: Flickr user wharman]

Casas Rapa Nui on Easter Island

It seems to me the whole luxury hotel in exotic
places thing has taken a turn for the weird. Not that I haven’t always wanted to visit Easter Island, which lies
waaaaay off the coast of Chile, but it just seems kind of lame to put some luxury accommodations there. I mean, I
thought the whole point of Easter Island is its remoteness and simplicity. But maybe I’m just a reactionary. Off course
they’re going to build luxury hotels in a place like that. People will pay for it, and when people pay, they build.

And so we have Casas Rapa Nui, on Easter Island, probably the most remote speck of land on the
globe. Run by the company Explora, who also has lodges in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, the hotel offers nine
spacious rooms and an ornate dining room and bar that cooks up fresh fish caught that very day from the seas around you.
And yet there’s more. By the end of next year Explora will finish a 30-room lodge with a swimming pool and sprawling
terrace restaurant with gaping views.

So if you’re interested, and I confess I am, despite my grumpiness
about bulding the place, you can check out LAN Airlines and book three to seven nights
at Casas Rapa Nui from around $1,200 per person.