Cactii and stargazing

Day 225 – Vicuña, Chile

Vicuña is a town dedicated to Gabriela Mistral, a famous Chilean poet who was born here. So the main plaza is named for her, there is a museum dedicated to her, and so on. I will have to find some poem to learn more!

Vicuña is also in the centre of several observatories. Northern Chile is known for the clarity of its skies, so many observatories are here. You may have heard of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Observatory. (It is a lot farther North than Vicuña, but you see the idea.)

So I went for one night, thinking to extend to two if I couldn’t find a ticket to see the stars right away. I was so well in the hostel that I ended up staying three nights!

There was a big fig tree with a table and chairs underneath, and if you know fig trees, you know that they can smell of fig… sitting with a good book was a very, very pleasant time!

On the advice of the hostel owner, I went for a walk to see a rock with petroglyphs. That was my first walk outside of a city in Chile, and that was what I needed to lighten my mood! I loved leaving the town and the vineyards behind me (the Elqui Valley is where lots of Pisco is produced) to enter the desert (on a real road, even if it was unsealed, I hasten to reassure you).

Road D-321

The ground is dusty and, at first sight, drab; however, I quickly found lots of vein of colours around me. The smallish valley I was walking along has (a few times a year) a creek, and the river stones were blueish. The hillsides where layers of oranges, yellow, ochres, reds, quite subtle but beautiful. And of course, the sky is a very intense blue.

Find the colours

That’s the Chile I wanted to see. I was overtaken by a man on his horse, with his pack mule, a donkey, and a baby donkey (I think). Or maybe it was two donkeys, I’m not very knowledgeable. It was a bit surreal.

All the pictures from that outing are in the gallery.

I found more copao ice-cream, and I took advantage of my time there to cook a bit. Simple things, but a pasta salad with chicken, olives, tomato and yellow pepper was a delight.

I did find a stargazing tour, and I ended up in a very convivial outing with “Astronomy in the garden”, where a Chilean couple invite people in their garden with their binoculars and telescope.

They don’t speak English and my Spanish is a joke (although I can’t joke in Spanish), but scientific terms have the same roots, and another guest had a sufficient knowledge of English to help me. All in all, I got the explanation and could ask my questions.

They have an installation that allows to tale pictures through one of their telescope, and that’s how I have (slightly blurry) pictures of the moon.

The moon

I learned that in the Southern Hemisphere, the moon phase are inverted. It’s logical when you think of it. Look at the picture: for us Northerner, it is waxing (growing). But that picture was taken upside down because that’s how the telescope works. I saw it the other side around, and I though it was waning… it wasn’t. So it’s easy to understand how in the Southern Hemisphere we see the moon upside-down of what we see in the North.

It’s the same for the constellations. Orion was in full glory, with both its hounds… and upside-down. The couple have powerful laser pointers that allow them to show us which stars they are taking about. And they can point them through the eyesight of their telescope to send a ray of light through it and point it more easily!

I learned also of the colours of the stars depending of their age, blueish white when they are young, going through yellow and orange before going to red and the end of their life.

And finally, they pointed to a part of the sky we can’t see from the Northern Hemisphere, which includes both Magellanic Clouds. Which we got a (distant) look at.

And that concluded a very busy day!