Penguins to stars and beyond

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Ok so now we managed to escape from the penguins and thus saved, we need to see an ATM' bout some beer money and go to have a look at some stars.

Chile has the clearest air I've ever seen. Its so bone dry that the air has nothing in it to distort your vision, incredible to put it mildly.

I'm not the only one who has noted this because Chile is filled with observatories, it must have the highest rate of telescopes per capita in the world.

N being curious about all things wanted to do a observatory tour and I decided to tag along, could be fun.

And if not....

So according to the tourist info in La Serena there was a place to visit in Vicuna 70 or some km away and what's 70 km when you've already done 6000 + of the same?

Drive drive drive we get to Vicuna and go to the ever present Plaza de Armas, the center to everyone else.

Lots of traffic, lots of people and where do we go, N gets a city map from a taxidriver and there are some hotels and hostals on the map so after driving about we stop at the first one we find.

N goes in to ask about prices and most importantly the size of the bed.

the place is owned by a little old lady who's beds are not long enough until she thinks of another room upstairs.

The room's nice enough, shared bath with someone who looks as he was made from leftover facial parts that did not match, poor wanker and I thought I was ugly ;-).

We mooch about and book our tour to the Mamalluca observatory and kill time until 11.30 pm when it all starts.

There's a festival in town with local bands with a smoke machine , lights and loads of amps and loudspeakers, they make up for their lack of talent with sheer volume, they're not very talented at all and I make earplugs from a paper napkin.

Vicuna is a small place and there's no escaping the racket.

And then it's time to go. We follow the minibus in the Chariot and we go higher and higher until we hit a mountaintop and there's Mamalluca, with a couple of 500mm telescopes.

First there's a crummy presentation and then we divide into groups, 10 on each scope, no lamps or lights up on the deck, we move in the starlight which is quite strong.

It's interesting when our guy tells us about the stars and show the constellations but a 500 mm is not that powerful but it,'s fun anyway.

One of the Chilean guys fidget with his blo.dy phone the whole time and when he's lit it up once to many I have enough and tell him to turn it off he looks offended but complies, what a wanker!!!

When the moon comes out behind a mountain at 2 am it's like turning a lamp on and observations are cancelled. We are invited downstairs where the" astronomers" have a band and wants to play folk music for us. enough is enough I'm bone tired and drag N with me and we drive down the steep hill and get home.

I tell you that Chile gets very cold at night and our beds could've had more blankets, I'm so tired and sleepy that I can't really figure out what to do, I get the beadspread on top of the bed and get into a fetal position and finally dooze off.

N frooze her tits off as well.

Breakfast time, some crummy Chilean stale bread and eggs in a casserole?

NO WAY!!!!

The little old lady is from Germany, and from a part where you don't breakfast on sausage!!

Muesli, yoghurt, fresh fruit, bread, salam,,i coffe homemade jam and cake, wow and treble wow , we're staying another night.

We tell Granny, because that's what she looks like, that we were freezin' our ... off so we got more blankets and a quilt and loads of info about where to go and do.

She's a real dear.

We saddle up and follow the Elqui valley until we can't be bothered to drive any further on what ends up as a crummy washbord gravelroad.

Around La Serena the desert ended and everything is a lot greener with little rivers and brooks that water large vineyards and also grape growing for fruit and raisins.

We're told that they haven't had a proper rain for a couple of years and that last winter's snow was not enough, and the big dam in the valley is far from full, drought on the way , maybe and to think of all the rain back home, 'twould be nice to swap for some sunshine. A good deal for everyone.

The Elqui valley is nice, loads of green , comparatively at least, a big difference from the north dry as a bone and not even a river but then again if it never rains, like in "It never rains in southern California".
It's quite cold at night as I wrote previously, less than 15 C and no clouds and no humidity so the places gets like Sweden in summer.
In the valley they make Pisco; some kind of brandy like alcoholic potion that both Chile and Peru claim to be their drink, and it's not particulary nice at that, ok there's a buzz in it but it's nothing you sip and smile quitely to yourself with.
Anyway, if you pay the price of the equivalent of 2 bottles you can visit the still and have a thimble full, good deal for them and then they have a restaurant with exorbitant prices as you wait for the tour, mercenary little capitalists.
Eventually we go back for some siesta. Facebook time for N and a bit of reading for me.
We should have spent less time doing that, restaurants close early on sundays it seems.
There's a place that cooks a lamb casserole in a solar kitchen, like a big box with reflective flaps that concentrates the sun light onto the casserole.
The temperature gets sufficiently high as to cook meat and boil water, but all the solar places are closed so we drive on but everything is closed.
So we drive home and dump the Chariot and then we walk around to get some dinner and in the end there's only one open and they charge accordingly, an arm and a leg for a crap dinner.
From now on we'll dine at 6 pm every day!!!
We listen to the new band who are about as good as their predecessors and decide that a meeting of the first kind with a bed would be nicer.
N's got double blankets and I a thick quilt and a blanket and an extra blanket, snug as a bug I promptly fall asleep.
Next morning after another great breakfast we decide to leave, Vicuna for a day and a half is great but for two and a half not so and we have to get going, my days are running out.
We do not follow the coastal road to Los Vilos but rather the inland road as not to be pissed off by the everpresent clouds, the road is nice and up and down with little villages here and there.
N gets to drive still no drivers license but what the heck. We got stopped every so often by the fuzz in Argie but so far never by their Chilean collegues.
We get onto the motorway and after a while we're flagged down by the Man, N gives some lame excuse about having left her license in the hostel and that I had hurt my foot all of this in bad Spanish, we have to show all our papers including my license and get to leave with a stern warning.
N's becoming a hardnosed liar and a cheat. Twice now she has lied to members of the constabulary, maybe it's time to get a license, lying is cheaper though.
Los Vilos is another costal town with resort ambitions. The beach is nice and we go for a long walk , nice and good after sitting on our behinds for a long while.
The hotel guy Joaquin is a victim of Pinochet's regime and tells about being shot and then tortured and then incarcerated and then some more torture and when let out of the prison only to be banished from Chile.
According to him 10% of the population fled from Chile, when the truth comission started up after Pinochets fall 100000 stood in line wanting to tell about how they had been treated.
As if the henchmen would give each and everyone a certificate to indicate by whom and when the had been put to the rack!!!!!
Sweden is indeed a lovely place.
Joaquin treated me to some pisco when N was doing her facebook thingy.

A very nice fishy dinner with a nice Sauvignon Blanc later it was easy to fall asleep according to N, I managed to snore and have hickups at the same time.

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Photos

P1090834
Bright side of the moon taken through the telescope at Mamalluca