Wednesday, February 06, 2008

2. Flight from São Paulo in Brazil to Santiago de Chile

I took the seven pictures below from the window of the plane on the second leg of my outbound journey, between São Paulo and Santiago in Chile.



Can anyone tell me what's going on in the pic below? What on earth are all those circles on the ground? The picture was taken after we'd crossed the Laguna de Mar Chiquita near Córdoba, but before we reached the Andes.

The five pictures below are all of the Andes mountain range:




2 comments:

Stairs said...

The round patches are simply circular fields of arable land within artificial irrigation catchments - a mechanical arm extends across the radius of each circle, rotating about the middle and spraying water/fertiliser/insecticide (as the farmer pleases).

They're more commonly used in areas where rainfall is unpredictable, but water more freely available.

Anonymous said...

Similar crop circles are seen when one flies over midwestern USA, result of irrigation, as Alistair points out.
Your photo of the Andes are awesom, GB!