Atacama

Spent the weekend in San Pedro, a tiny tourist town amidst the Atacama Desert. It was a restless weekend with activities planned from sunup to sundown. We've all had about 8 hours of sleep in the past two days. I'm tired today, but the trip was well worth the fatigue.

We woke up early on Saturday, after arriving to our hotel past midnight on Friday, around 7 am. About 15 miles away were some ancient Inca ruins, and we were going to ride to see them on bicycle. It was a sweaty ride. Rain reaches the Atacama no more than 3 times a year, and when it does rain, the evaporation rate rids of it so quickly it's as if it hadn't rained at all. The other 362 days of the year are sunny, no clouds, just sun--hot, beating sun. We had one of these sunny days. The geography was unlike anything I've ever come close to seeing before, and very hard to describe in words. Just picture mountain after mountain of hardened clay, each with rivets and grooves shaped by years and years of wind erosion. I would put up a picture, but unfortunately my camera fell out of sweatshirt pocket on the bus yesterday as we were heading to the airport. It's not lost, it's just on that bus, and i've been spending all morning talking with various people from the bus company trying to locate it. They'll have to mail it once they find it. Probably won't have any pictures for a week.

As you can imagine, San Pedro de Atacama is one of the better places in the world to see the stars. Not only is there little artificial light, but the lack of moisture in the air makes for clear atmosphere and nearly uninhibited viewing conditions. On Saturday night we took a bus out into the desert and stopped at a professional astronomer's home/lab. He gave us a tour of the sky and let us play with his 15 different telescopes, a few of which were longer and wider than me. Easy to say that those were the best skies I've ever seen. Heron Island has great skies too, but on the island parts of the sky are blocked by trees and cottages, whereas in the desert there is nothing except a 360 degree view of all that's above you.

Sunday was more touring. We went to Chile's salt flats. Picture miles and miles of nothing but clumps of salt rocks. A white carpet. Actually, the ground isn't flat at all. Chile's salt chunkys is a better name. You can reach down and break off little salt rocks to suck on. Again, will have those pictures in a week or so.

This trip was by far the best i've taken so far in Chile. In the South of Chile, the geogrpahy reminds me a lot of the US Northeast, but the North is completely unique. Very fortunate to have seen it. Could have spent another two weeks there. But alas, the University calls. Bah!