亚伊马火山与前景中的智利南洋杉，智利孔吉利奥国家公园 Volcano Llaima with Araucaria trees in the foreground, Conguillío National Park, Chile (© Fotografías Jorge León Cabello/Getty Images)
亚伊马火山与前景中的智利南洋杉，智利孔吉利奥国家公园 Volcano Llaima with Araucaria trees in the foreground, Conguillío National Park, Chile (© Fotografías Jorge León Cabello/Getty Images)
Fall for Chile
Autumn in Chile varies widely as one travels from the Atacama Desert in the north more than 2,600 miles south to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. Around halfway between these two extremes you can find Conguillío National Park and the volcano Llaima at Chile's center. In March, at the start of the Southern Hemisphere's autumn, the leaves of the deciduous forest begin to turn color and fall, and the native Chilean pine trees (Araucarias) stand out even more strikingly.
Because of their distinctive appearance and the fact that they thrive in a wide range of climates, the trees became a favorite of botanists in the 19th century, who transported and cultivated them in many temperate climates around the world. The 'monkey puzzle' trees got their common English name in the 1850s when English barrister Charles Austin observed that 'It would be a puzzle for a monkey to climb that.' Even more amazing is that these trees can live over a thousand years and are themselves living fossils, descended from a lineage stretching back 260 million years to the time of the dinosaurs.
爱上智利
智利的秋天变化很大，人们从北部的阿塔卡马沙漠向南行驶2600多英里，到达火地岛的顶端。在这两个极端的中间，你可以看到智利国家公园和智利中心的拉伊马火山。今年3月，南半球秋季伊始，落叶林的树叶开始变色、飘落，智利本土的松树（Araucarias）更加引人注目。
由于其独特的外观和在各种气候条件下茁壮成长的事实，这些树在19世纪成为植物学家的最爱，他们在世界各地的许多温带气候条件下运输和栽培它们。19世纪50年代，英国大律师查尔斯·奥斯汀（Charles Austin）指出，猴子爬上那棵树将是一个谜，于是“猴子拼图”树就有了共同的英文名称。更令人惊奇的是，这些树能活上一千多年，而且本身就是活化石，其世系可追溯到公元前2.6亿年恐龙。
Portrait of poet Pablo Neruda projected on building, Santiago, Chile (© Mario Tellez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Portrait of poet Pablo Neruda projected on building, Santiago, Chile (© Mario Tellez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
It's World Poetry Day
For World Poetry Day, we're seeing the stylized visage of poet Pablo Neruda projected on a building in his native Chile. World Poetry Day was established by UNESCO to acknowledge 'that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings.' Neruda, a Nobel laureate generally held up by Chileans as their national poet, made his early mark with famously racy love poetry. But his palette of questions and feelings evolved, expanding into surrealism, epic history, and radical politics. His death in 1973 after a bout with cancer was mourned publicly by Chileans—in defiance of newly installed dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom many Chileans link to Neruda's untimely passing.
For World Poetry Day, UNESCO encourages embracing the tradition of reciting poetry for an audience—so keep your eyes peeled for poetry slams and other gatherings of language lovers sure to take place around the world today. Care to prepare? Brush up on your poetry knowledge with today's quiz.
拉帕努伊国家公园中阿胡汤加里基的摩艾石像，智利复活节岛 Moai statues at Ahu Tongariki in Rapa Nui National Park, Easter Island, Chile (© blickwinkel/Alamy)
拉帕努伊国家公园中阿胡汤加里基的摩艾石像，智利复活节岛 Moai statues at Ahu Tongariki in Rapa Nui National Park, Easter Island, Chile (© blickwinkel/Alamy)
The 'moai' you know
Roam around the tiny, remote Easter Island and you'll find almost 900 of the stern stone faces called moai. They seem ancient as the pyramids, even a little alien, but they were actually sculpted between 500 and 800 years ago from compacted volcanic ash that's as terrestrial as it comes. You're seeing six of the 15 moai that stand on Ahu Tongariki, the largest ahu (stone platform) on the island. These statues were toppled in the 18th or 19th century along with other moai island-wide for reasons not fully known to scholars, though earthquakes or possible tribal infighting are postulated. The statues were later buried by a tidal wave and lay in ruins until the 1990s when they were excavated and placed back on the ahu.
Though scholars still debate how and why the moai were constructed and moved into place, it's known that they represent the ancestors of the Rapa Nui, an isolated and hardy culture that still celebrates its uniqueness. Visit Easter Island during the first two weeks of February and you'll find yourself in the midst of Tapati Rapa Nui, a festival that revives islander ceremonies of song and dance, as well as sporting events like ocean canoeing, horse racing, and haka pei (high-speed sledding on banana tree trunks).
The Villarrica volcano in Chile on September 2, 2018 (© Cristobal Saavedra Escobar/Reuters)
The Villarrica volcano in Chile on September 2, 2018 (© Cristobal Saavedra Escobar/Reuters)
Celebrating Chile's Independence Day
That's the Villarrica volcano providing fireworks for our observance of Chile's Independence Day celebrations—called Fiestas Patrias—taking place September 18 and 19. The second-most active volcano in South America, Villarrica is known to the indigenous Mapuche people as Rucapillán (Devil's House). This photo was taken on September 2, 2018, alarming nearby residents, but it wasn't nearly as destructive as other relatively recent eruptions, like one in 2015 that prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of people.
Chile's Fiestas Patrias take place each year just before the spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, so the Independence Day celebrations double as a kind of spring festival. With most schools and workplaces on a weeklong vacation, people observe the holiday by attending rodeos, going to the beach, visiting family, and—above all—indulging in traditional Chilean food and drink. It's said that Chileans gain 10 pound or more during the Fiestas Patrias. Most gorge themselves on empanadas de pino, which are small pastries filled with minced meat, sautéed onions, hard-boiled egg, olives, and sometimes raisins. The empanadas are typically eaten with a variety of grilled meats from barbecue stands called asados. It's all washed down with local red wine or chicha, which in Chile is a sweet, distilled grape- or apple-based beverage that is almost exclusively drunk during the week of Fiestas Patrias celebrations.
