Fotoeins Fotografie

I’m highlighting the La Serena-Coquimbo area in north-central Chile, where I lived from 2006 to 2011 after many visits to the area between mid-1990s and the early aughts.

On previous visits to La Serena, I’d always been curious but never thought to ask. As new resident of the area in 2006, I finally make my way to the imposing cement structure. I’m up at the elevated platform where additional viewing areas provide a complete panorama of the area. At the foot of the cross there’s a chapel and a museum of religious art.

Inaugurated in 2001 on top of the hill Cerro El Vigía in the town of Coquimbo, the cross stands 93 meters high and 40 meters wide as one of the largest religious monuments to Catholicism in South America, and marks the calendar’s transition into a new millennium. That’s why the Coquimbo Cross is formally called la Cruz del Tercer Milenio (the Cross of the Third Millennium). In clear transparent conditions, the cross is visible to the naked eye from mountain observatories 60 kilometres to the east.

Standard view of Coquimbo from the beach in late-afternoon light – 15 Sep 2006.

I made both photos above with a Canon PowerShot A510 on 15 Sep 2006 and 1 Apr 2007. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-jLd.