• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Google Earth Blog

The amazing things about Google Earth

  • Home
  • About
  • Basics
  • Links
  • Tips
  • 3D Models
  • Sightseeing
  • Videos

Giant 3 km Poem in the Desert in Google Earth

January 19, 2009

This is a big one! A poet wrote a 3 kilometer-wide message – visible from space – in the desert of northwest Chile. The message says “ni pena ni miedo” which translates in English to “neither shame nor fear“. The poet’s name is Raúl Zurita, and he used a bull dozer to write the message in the desert sand. According to an interview at Jacket Magazine (about half-way down the article), the poet “…doesn’t like abstract poetry. He says that in those days of brutality and distrust and terror, the reign of Pinochet, he began to imagine writing poems in the sky, on the faces of cliffs, in the desert. His words…are gradually fading away, joining thousands of men, women, and children who disappeared in fear and pain during the Pinochet years.” Fortunately, his words are now immortalized in satellite photos and Google Earth! Check out the entire message in Google Earth. It’s huge, and it’s really there – not a photoshop.
3 km Message bulldozed in desert in Google Earth.  'ni pena ni miedo'
via the Google Earth Community – posted by ‘yipero’.

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

  • More Posts(1963)

Filed Under: Google Earth News, Sightseeing

Reader Interactions






PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

Comments

  1. David Ashby says

    January 19, 2009 at 10:32 am

    This could also be translated as “Neither PAIN nor Fear.”

  2. Jim G says

    January 19, 2009 at 2:34 pm

    Sorry this looks cooked up. Notice the sun reflections coming from different angles.

  3. Canoro says

    January 19, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Pena can be translated as shame, sorrow. not pain as physical, but emotional.

  4. Ronban says

    January 20, 2009 at 6:14 am

    In chilean spanish “pena” means “sadness”…

  5. Damien says

    February 3, 2009 at 11:15 am

    Hey Jim G, have you ever looked at google earth?
    Some parts of it have the sun coming from all sorts of places because the photos are taken at different times.
    What you think there is one big camera up there that can photograph the entire earth all at once?
    Think about it dude.

  6. Natalie says

    February 9, 2009 at 7:31 pm

    hey, I heard about things like that written in the deserts, but it was a form for the natives to speak to the gods and let their message be seen to the stars and others to see what there is on earth. I think for the first writent message it’s the best words to send out there.

  7. Banjul Kumar says

    March 6, 2009 at 12:44 am

    Mr. Raúl Zurita, the poet, who had done this work, is really admirable. My best wishes to him and also to Google Earth for unearthing this.



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

Primary Sidebar

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
Twitter




Categories

  • 3D Models (792)
  • Applications (708)
  • Business (288)
  • Environment (353)
  • Flying (208)
  • GE Plugin (282)
  • Google Earth News (1,764)
  • Google Earth Tips (592)
  • GPS (136)
  • Navigation (227)
  • Network Links (214)
  • Sailing (121)
  • Science (499)
  • Sightseeing (1,903)
  • Site News (587)
  • Sky (67)
  • Sports (154)
  • Street View (50)
  • Tours (117)
  • Video (421)
  • Weather (180)

Get new posts by email

Get new posts by email:

Google Earth Satellites

Copyright 2005-© 2022 Frank Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

This blog and its author are not an official source of information from Google that produces and owns Google Earth Google and Google Earth are trademarks of Google Inc.. All image screenshots from Google Earth are Copyright Google. All other trademarks appearing here are the trademarks of their respective owners.