The Photo Gallery of Ramón Kristian Arellano

It's been half a year since the last album of Solveig Mathilde. This album is a collection of photos from the last months, including her first birthday in December.

The fuel to electric conversion of an RC biplane. I inherited the plane from my father, hence the name 'La Herencia'. You can read all about it in my blog at http://ramon.no.

I just acquired a Canon EOS 450D with a fixed 50mm f1.4 lense. It's a perfect match. I never had a camera this sensitive to light before. It brings completely new possiblities for taking indoor pictures without flash, which is exactly what I've been doing for the last couple of days. I need some serious practicing with my new equipment, but here some of my first shots.

I'm pretty certain Kari has taken more pictures during her leave of absence with Solveig Mathilde than she has taken ever before, and I've been helping too. This a big collection of photos from our summer together.

Pictures of our daughter. She keeps growing, and we keep taking pictures. Solveig Mathilde has been on her first boat trip, plane trip and train trip.

I spent one day by myself in London and decided to put my camera to good use. There's nothing like walking around in a big city on a sunny Saturday and taking in all the sights. You don't even have to look for interesting scenes to shoot, they just keep popping up by themselves.

Pictures from week 9 to 14 in Solveig Mathilde's life. The eagernes to take pictures of her still hasn't diminished. Maybe it's related to our fear of missing or forgetting this beautiful period in her life.

Pictures from week 4 to 8 in Solveig Mathilde's life. Like all parents we went bananas with our camera, and we didn't stop there. We borrowed an even better camera (thanks Endre) and did a photo session in our living room.

Day X and day 1 in Solveig Mathilde's life. She caused her mom terrible pain, and brought some tears to her father's eyes, but she was born strong and healthy on December 1st, at 07:59. She weighed 3158 grams and measured 49 cm.

Memories from the nine months before Solveig Mathilde was born. If Solveig only new all the things she was part of while still in her mother's belly! Trips to Spain, Croatia and Sweden, practicing with an African choir, practicing Yoga and organizing a stag party!

A movie showing Solveig Mathilde kicking like crazy inside her mom's belly! It's really worth a look!

Trip to Stockholm with our close friends, Einar and Hege. We walked the streets, we sat at the cafés, drank some coffee, talked, walked the streets some more, visited a couple of night clubs, visited a museum, and then we went home. Oh that's right, we stopped by IKEA an ate som kjöttbullar on the way. Perfect trip.

I just built an RC airplane from scratch and decided to write about it on my blog. This album contains all the photos for the blog article. You can read about it at http://ramon.arellano.no.

The first time my friend Alen and I talked about visiting his motherland, Yugoslavia, was in 1991. Then the war started. Now 16 years later I was given the chance to go with him and his wife, Merete, to Bosnia and Croatia. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

We flew into Belgrade and drove from there through Croatia to the city of Tuzla in Bosnia. From Tuzla we continued south through Sarajevo and Mostar on our way to the Croatian coast. It's a trip over beautiful mountain scenery.

After an intense cultural vacation in Bosnia, we met up with Kari, Einar and Hege in Croatia. We stayed at the small town of Mlini, right outside Dubrovnik. Time for some beach and relaxation.

I've been waiting for a rainy day to upload some pictures from all those beautiful summer days we've had. This is a collection of photos from summer activities so far.

Its been 15 years since I had my own RC airplane capable of doing all kinds of aerobatics! It was about time a got myself a new one.

We had some time to travel around and visit people and places both before and after the party. We actually got to see parts of Chile we had never seen before.

It's way to expensive for an average Chilean family to fly to Norway to celebrate a wedding, and we just couldn't cheat my family in Chile out of a party, could we? That's why we flew to Santiago and celebrated our wedding for the second time!

I just came back from a nice business trip to Austria. Actually it was nicer trip than most business trips. The IBM conference was good, I travelled with great colleagues, the city of Salzburg was spectacular, and we got some days with beautiful weather. On top of it all, IBM payed the bill. I just can't complain.

On our last vacation to visit Kari's family in Spain, my father in law lent me his model sailplane. The conditions are perfect along the coast. Well, at least if you have an almost indestructable plane, which I had. It's some of the finest flying I've ever done.

Such an excellent summer derserves it's own album. I can remember enjoying so many warm and sunny days during one summer in Norway, ever.

Our honeymoon in Corsica. We spent the first days in a great hotel in Bonifacio, then we spent a week in a small appartment near Porto Vecchio, and finally some days in Porticcio. A truly relaxing vacation with a lot sun, beach, food and drink.

Kari and I got married on June 17th! These are pictures from the ceremony at Gamle Aker kirke in Oslo. Kari wasn't all that comfortable getting married in a church, so she was determined to get things done her way. She did a great job.

The dinner was at Rotnes Bruk, a beautiful estate 15 minutes outside of Oslo. It was recently renovated by Margreth and Andreas Wessel, the most caring and attending hosts you could ever wish for. Enormous gratitude goes out to them.

Dinner is finally over, and the party can begin. I hope people enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

The title and the photos say it all.

Another cabin trip. This time to Skeikampen together with my sister Lykke and her boyfriend, Tord.

Trip with my friends to Einar's cabin in Valdres.

Yay! We finally have a tiny living creature in our home! I've missed having a cat ever since Knøttet died in January. Now we have this insanely cute little cat of our own. Her name is Tikknatan.

My father, Kari's father, Jon and I went out to fly this impressive double decker. It's my father's creation, designed and built from scratch, and it took ten years from it was built in 1995, until it actually flew in September 2005. By the way, it has a 6 feet (2m) wing span!

Summer memories from two vacations in Spain - one in July with our friends, Gunn and Øyvind, and the other in September with my sister, Lykke and her boyfriend Tord.

Tobias, one of my best friends got married in August. I was a photographer at the wedding, so I have a bunch of pictures from the event. It was a great party. Can you tell from the pictures?

Our summerhouse and where my mother grew up as a child. It's a wooden cottage in the Norwegian country side.

Finally a summer in Norway. It's been some years since the last.

Miscellaneous pictures from a great spring in Oslo

The capital city of Uganda, and where Joakim and Silje live. This was my landing spot on the trip to Uganda, and it was as soft a landing as I could get. Straight to Joakim and Silje's quality appartment complex, with swimming pool and squash court.

Definetly the highlight of my trip. Tobias, Beate, Joakim, Silje and I went tracking for mountain gorillas in the south west of the country, only a couple of miles from the borders to Rwanda and Congo. Standing a couple of meters away from a silver back gorilla leader is a memory that just doesn't fade - especially when you're told not to make noise or sudden movements and you suddenly realize your're being stung by wasps. What a life...

This two day trip in a rented car by myself made me realize that my next vacation is going to be to Mallorca or Benidorm. Enough excitement for this year. I blogged a long description of the events on http://ramonarellano.blogspot.com .

These photos are from the same trip as the visit to Bwindi Impenetrable forest. It was an 11 hour ride between Kampala and Bwindi, so on the way back we stopped by one of Uganda's prettiest spots, Lake Buyunyi.

A friend made me realize I have extremely few pictures from Norway on my page, so I put up this collection of miscellaneous photoes from winter 2005, in Norway.

This year's birthday present from Kari: A trip to Buenos Aires! How lucky am I? Allthough the poor argentinians have been through some rough times, this city is just great. People here live for their tango and football - everything else just isn't that important.

From Buenos Aires you can catch a train to the coast. It's a short trip to Mitre, where you can catch a cute little train along the coast of Rio de la Plata to Tigre. Tigre is an astonishing, green delta, famous for all its small islands with summer houses and restaurants. Highly recommended!

A small collection of photos I've manipulated using Adobe Photoshop. Having a digital camera makes the endless possibilities of weird and impossible pictures pop into my mind.

Staying in Chile for the winter is paying off! After some of days of hard rain in Santiago the sun finally came out. The Andes mountains looked fantastic covered in snow. Kari and I packed up and headed for our first ski trip in Chile!

This is the start of our trip to northern Chile and Bolivia. The whole thing started quite nicely, but it got really rough along the way. Seems like Kari and I are moving towards the end of our backpacking careers. Just give me the hotel room with the heated floors and the fluffy towels, damn it!

San Pedro is one of the two most popular places for backpackers in Chile (the other being Pucon in the south). You can do all sorts of 'crazy', 'young' activities like biking inside volcano creaters and smoking pot while scuba diving. Apart from that and being the perfect place to pass the Andes over to Bolivia, it has some of the most amazing sceneries we've ever seen.

This is one of the most amazing trips you can ever do. The scenery changes from mountains in seven colours, to rocky desert with geysers and volcanoes, and then to flat salt lakes with lagoons and flamingos. Amazing. It's also a pretty rough ride, we we're cold and dissy from the altitude most of the time.

The worlds largest salt lake. 12 000 square kilometers of pure salt. It looks like northern Norway in the winter, except for the small pieces of Mexico thrown into the whiteness.

The world's highest city at 4100 meters above sea level. This was once the richest city of North and South America, built on silver mining and explotation of the indegenous anduvian population.

Two of Bolivias largest and most beautiful cities. The first, an old, colonial style city painted white. The second, a modern city with lively clubs and cultural life.

This is a Macromedia Flash presentation of a 360 degree picture taken while we were crossing the Andes mountains. It's really a combination of 10 pictures that have been stitched together. I was sure I would catch pneumonia after taking the pictures in the freezing wind.

Miscellaneous pictures from a beautiful summer spent in the garden with baberques and wine. Kari and I have had visits from parents and from plenty of norwegian and chilean and friends. This is what makes all the hassle of renting out the house well worth it.

We've had two great trips to the coast outside of Santiago this summer. The first time we went with Thomas, Lise and Jon Erik, all of whom we're visiting us from Norway. The second time we went with our friends Trude and Roberto.

I worked for Accenture the first four months of our stay. That meant missing out on the entire summer, but the experience was very well worth it. I was project lead for 13 programmers on an 'electronic billing' project for Chile's largest phone company, Telefonica CTC.

Kari and I had to go to Argentina to renew her tourist visa. We thought a trip by car to Mendoza would take around 3 hours, which would make a nice weekend trip. It turns out, with the waiting at the border and pulling drowning people out of rivers, it's around 8 hours each way. Still it was a very nice trip.

Lots of pictures of my chilean family. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to come here. I only see my chilean familiy once every five years, and every time the young ones have grown so much that I have to get to know them all over again.

Kari's parents came to visit us for Christmas. They also did a trip to southern Chile, which is spectacularly beautiful during summer. A typical landscape would be brigth blue skies and a lama eating grass, in a green field, in front of lake, at the feet of a volcano, with snow at the top.

Kari and I have moved to Chile afters months of preparations! These pictures are of our first days, which we spent at my uncles house (nope, that's note our house in the pictures!). It's wonderful to be back in my country of birth and to see that chileans are doing pretty well for themselves. Viva Chile!

THIS is our house! The people that rentedit the last three years left it in a pretty sad state, but Kari and I are fixing it up as best we can. I love this street! It always looks like a huge, green tunnel with a ceiling made of leaves. This is my childhood playground.

The house has become a habitable place, and then some. We're pretty happy with the effort we've put into it. The walls are painted, furniture is in place, curtains and lamps are up, and the back yard is almost finished! We can now enjoy a siesta in the hammock under the walnut tree, or simply lie on the green grass and look at the fruit trees.

I put together an amateur movie in order to show the house and street. Sometimes pictures just can't pick up the atmosphere. Notice: The movie is 26 MB!

BAARCEEELOOOOONAAA! We spent a week in Barcelona visiting old friends of the family. Thank you Ana and Jorge for letting us stay with you! Ana is actually the granddaughter of my chilean grandmother's friend from the time my grandparentes lived in Spain. Strange how the worlds moves in circles.

This is where Kari's sister lives on the south-eastern coast of Spain. It's a cozy little town comfortably far away from the tourist noise of Benidorm. Kari's mother and father just bought a house nearby, so I guess we're spending a significant number of the summers to come right here.

We took little Sandra (Kari's three year-old niece) to the circus. She was like... like... well, like a three-year old at the circus. I especially like the picture where she's trying to get a look behind the scenes. A child's curiosity.

Lots of cute pictures of Kari's nieces. Kari made me put them here. No she didn't. I'm just saying that to keep my macho reputation untouched. Little Maria was born while we we're visiting. It was a nice experience to welcome this small, new citizen of the world.

Kari and I had a long stop-over in Copenhagen on our flight between Oslo and Alicante. We spent the day strolling around and enjoying everything Copenhagen has to offer.

A collection of fotos from the spring and summer of 2003 in Norway. I hope it gives a good impression of the bright sides of Norwegian nature and weather!

Non-spectacular pictures from my stay in The Hague. I spent tree months there (from November 2002 to February 2003) working for Accenture. Hotel life sucks, but at least I had Kari visit me in January.

My last trip with Kari in South Africa. The destination was Kruger National Park, but looking at a map it seemed the easiest way to get there from Durban was through Swaziland, so that's what we did. What a beautiful, but poverty stricken country! Kruger was exactly what we expected it to be, an abundance of wildlife!

This is where we live! It's South-Africa's third largest city and lies on the east coast. Most of these pictures are from the nice parts of town. Check out the last picture to get a more balanced opinion of Durban and South-Africa!

Pictures from a weekend trip to Hlueluwe-Umfolozi - a game reserve three hours north of Durban along the coast. To be completely honest I didn't have a clue South-Africa had rhinos, giraffs, elefants, etc. etc. Did you?

This is from another weekend trip, but this time towards the Drakensberg mountains and Lesotho, deep inside South-Africa. Beautiful scenery and lots of people living in the simplest conditions in this god-forsaken country.

Pictures from our trip to Spain (from South Africa!) to celebrate Kjersti and Luis' wedding. It took us 41 hours from door to door, but it was well worth the trip!

The amazing wedding celebration was held at Benidorm's Palm Beach hotel, with 218 guests!

New continent, new country! These are all pictures from my stay in South Africa together with Kari. This first selection is from the Wild Coast, the eastern coast between Durban and Port Elisabeth. When we arrived in July we rented a car and had a sensational trip along the coast.

A few pictures from the historic city of Grahamstown. It's a chilly little place a couple of hours drive inland from the Wild Coast. Here we spent one night in heaven, and one night in hell.

This is a place really worth going, there are all sorts of landscapes and animals to be seen here. It's actually known as the "ostrich capital of the world", so if you want to try an ostrich steake, this is the place to come.

This gallery is for the animal lovers. Most pictures were taken at national reserves and wildlife parks, but some are straight from the wild. Getting up close with wild creatures in Africa is not just something you see in the movies. Take a trip to South Africa and you'll see what I mean.

The Cape peninsula and Cape Town. Before we went everybody was telling us how beautiful Cape Town is, and that it's the pearl of South Africa. Now that I've seen myself, I must say, they were right.

360 degree panoramic view from Sverresborg in Bergen. I've stitched several photos together and made into a Flash movie, where you can look around as you please.

Every now and again Accenture sends me to Chicago for training purposes. This time I got to be the coach. It's quite a challenge coaching 9 guys and girls from 7 different countries at the same time!

I love these cabin trips in winter time. You never no if you're going to make it to the cabin, not to mention if you'll be able to get back home. Usually everything turns out fine. Check out the movie of Tobias disappearing into the deep snow after a nice ski jump.

Old Havana, if you go there, be ready to be meet a culture like you've never seen. A history of conquistadores, slaves, corrupt capitalists and idealistic socialists have surely left their mark.

Havana's west-side was gangsta'z paradise during the 40's and 50's. Now it's as rich, or poor, as the rest of Havana and Cuba, but the beautiful buildings and cars remain.

Not the carribean island, but the city on Cuba's carribean coast. This is as close as you get to experiencing the colonialism of the 17th century.

The city of a hundred fires, also called "La perla del sur", the pearl of the south.

In my opinion Thailand is one the best countries in the world for travel. The people are nice, it's got great climate, it's incredibly exotic, and you can get a nice clean bed and a warm shower whenever you need one.

These two cities lie north of Bangkok, and are both well worth visiting. Sukothai is mostly famous for its temple ruins, where you can rent a bike and go sightseeing on your own. Chiang Mai is an 8 million people metropol. If you go there don't miss out on the night markets, the Thai massages and the Thai cooking courses.

When I realized that the Thais sleep everywhere, I decided to make a small collection of pictures. Some of the places and positions in which they manage to sleep are staggering.

North western Thailand. This is the place to go for trips into the countryside, bare-back riding on elephants and visiting Karen long neck villages. A couple of months after putting up these pictures on the web, I realized they became very popular on a chat forum regarding the "long neck" traditions. I'm glad to be of a assistance on a academical level!

The Elephant Island in the Thai Gulf. Kari and I spent the last days of our vacation relaxing on the beach. Ko Chang is the right place to do exactly that.

Kari convinced me to buy a black and white film, and I insisted on shooting it all at once on the beach. We're both very happy with those decisions.

Mysterious Cambodia with its fascinating and gruesome history. We only spent two nights here to see the Angkor Wat ruins. They are right up there with Macchu Pichu on my list of most incredigble places on earth.

My first month at work, in Nice, not bad ay? I was sent to Andersen bootcamp together with a bunch of other new employees.

My six month long trip through South America started and ended in Santiago. Actually I travelled back and forth to Chile a couple of times, because my parents were living there at the time and my friends all had flights in and out of Santiago.

A trip to southern Chile with Kari, Einar and Synøve. This was actually the beginning of my relationship with Kari! How strange to think about that now. At the time of writing we have been together for 4 years! We had a good start, climbing volcanoes, visiting beautiful lakes and eating at local fish restaurants.

After visiting the south we picked up Aril in Santiago and took a trip to northern Chile. It's quite arid and monotone, but there are pearls to be found. Among them are La Serena, Chuquicamata, San Pedro de Atacama and Arica.

My uncle fixed us a visit to the famous Undurraga and Santa Rita wineyards. Santa Rita may be visited by anyone and even has a restaurant, but you need and invitation to get into Undurraga. Chilean wineyards follow modern wine processing techniques, with computer controlled fermenting and stainless steel tanks.

My first trip to Bolivia. I was so tired and sick from the altitude, but so excited by the sights and the people. La Paz is one of my favourite cities. It looks nothing like a capital where it lies in a rocky valley. We also visited the nearby Tihuanaco ruins. The center of an acient civilization. The Tihuanacos had knowledge of agriculture, fish breeding, and climatic manipulation, that the people living in the Bolivian highlands today can't even grasp.

The world's highest navigable lake (3800m). It's contains among other interesting features, the island "Isla del Sol", where the Incas believed the sun and the moon where born. It also houses the entire Bolivian navy, a fact chileans like to brag about ever since they stripped Bolivia of their coast line. Vamos a la playa! Oh oh oh oh oh!

Cuzco was the Inca capital. It lies close to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, and is the starting point for all travellers visiting Machu Picchu. It still has remains of Incan stone builldings, but the spanish made sure to build churches and the like on top of them. God bless.

A must for everyone travelling in southern Peru. It is the only example of an Inca city that was not burnt or otherwise destroyed by the spanish conquistadors, and that's only because they never found it. Machu Picchu is the name of the mountain, no-one actually know the name of the city itself.

A fantastic colonial style city in southern Peru. It has a beautiful monastery that is still in use, but can be visited. I had the traditional local dish, I just wish someone had told me it was a poor guinea pig, before I ate it.

In Arequipa I joined up with a couple of trekking fanatics from California. We set out on a 7 day trip along the Colca Canyon. The worlds deepest canyon, with 1000 meters from the plateau straight to the bottom. Making fires at night, eating prickle pears and strolling along by day, that's my kind of outdoor adventure.

Two very special cities along the arid coast of southern Peru. I never thought the world's driest desert would lie right by the ocean shore. You've probably heard of the lines of Nazca, those enourmous drawings on the desert floor. Both cities have history of ancient cultures. Their mummies, tools and art are very well preserved due to the dry conditions.

What contrast between rich and poor! And so many poor people to every rich! Peru's capital has plenty of nice sights to offer, but it also makes me hope Peru someday gets a stable socialist goverment with balls to make some change.

This has got to be the most exciting and different place I've ever been to. A city with a population of 400 000 and no streets going in or out of it! It lies completely isolated in the Amazon jungle, with the Amazon river as the only connection to the outside world. The city center still looks like any modern city with its cuadratic street system and its plazas, but there are almost only motorbikes riding around. I rented one and set out to explore the area.

After a week in Iquitos I took my motorbike to the river harbour and asked for a boat to the coast. I was told it took three days and that it would leave in the morning. I asked what to bring, and they told me "only your hammock". Right, my hammock, of course. So the boat set off with 300 locals, 20 chicken, 5 monkeys 2 dogs, and me.

My uncle in Chile helped a young Ecudorian fellow get through his medical studies in Chile. To thank my uncle his family recieved me in their home in Cuenca, and treated me like a king. "Here's the key to the house and here's the key to the car". Like I had done anything to deserve such treatment!

If you go to Riobamba don't miss out on the spectacular train ride to Nariz del Diablo. It's considered one of the most exciting rides by train fanatics (I just found out they existed). You get to ride on the roof of the train through wonderful scenerey, and there's even a guy selling beer! El Chimborazo is Ecuador's highest mountain. Grab a taxi (!) to the first refugio and hike up to the second, if you can handle the height!

Baños and Montañita, two popular places for backpackers in Ecuador. At the first you can rent a mountainbike and go down a hill for miles and miles, then take a bus back up. You can also bathe in large thermal pools. The second is a famous beach for surfers. You can probably imagine the atmosphere in such a place.

While I was in Quito I met a Norwegian guy, Robert, that was travelling north. I asked him if he was going to Colomiba. He said yes. I asked him if he hadn't heard about the dangers of travelling in Colombia. He said yes. Then he asked me if I was travelling to Colombia, and if I had heard about the dangers. I said yes. Then we travelled into Colombia together. Crossing the entire South American continent certainly deserves a couple of days on the beach in hammock, doing absolutely nothing.

I met so many great people during my stay in Santa Barbara. Obviously all Norwegian... This is from a reunion party in southern Norway.

Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end...