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  • Galaxy gazing in Chile

    Not being adventurous nor athletic, it’s rare for me to do something completely new. You’ll never hear me say I went skydiving, scuba diving or bungee jumping.    So when we had the opportunity to star gaze, at a real observatory I couldn’t wait.  It was something I had never ever done before.

    Chile is known as one of the best places in the world to see stars. Something about climatic conditions and clear skies.  There are several observatories near the town of Vicuna.

    We chose Observatario del Pangue.  A minivan drove us from the town to the observatory.   The eleven mile drive felt like eternity.   It was pitch black and the minivan was driving up a mountain on a dirt road with no guard rails. With every switch back I thought the truck would fall off the edge.  I spent the entire ride up thinking,  “They can’t be serious. This isn’t safe. This is not worth dying for. Why did we even do this dumb tour.”

    But, then after what felt like an hour we arrived on top of the mountain.  We got out of the car and it was all more than worthwhile.  I actually gasped. How often does that REALLY happen?  The sky looked like it couldn’t possibly be real.   The below photo is from their website. It looked EXACTLY like this.  And this was just standing there.

    We were met by Eric, our guide who spoke perfect English. There was only one other couple on the tour, and they went off with another tour guide. So we had our own private tour.  Eric was an astrophysisist who obviously knows his stuff, but was also as excited as we were to just look up at the sky.

    Jeff and Eric, our private astrophysisist for the night.

    I pretty much said nothing but, “Oh my God, this can’t be real.” over and over and he pretty much agreed with me.

    courtesy of the observatorio del pangue website

    It was so incredibly beautiful I had such an urge to take photos.   I knew they wouldn’t come out but I couldn’t help myself.

    i have about 60 photos like this.

    The first question I asked was, “are those clouds over there?” I pointed to two small smudges off to the left.  Eric explained they weren’t smudges, but distant galaxies.   The below photo is from wikipedia, but this is an enlarged version of exaclty what it looked like.

    from wikipedia – not smudges, galaxies

    It was so mind blowing that I actually sort of lost my mind. Next, I saw the coolest star ever, it was red and blinking and moving fast across the sky. I actually yelled out, “Look at that one, it’s blinking.”    It was of course a plane.

    Then it was time to look through the telescope.   He would position it and say something like, “This is a very very nice galaxy. I think you will like it.” We got to see nebulas, star clusters, new stars, old stars and dying stars. But still, nothing was as awesome as just standing there seeing the milky way above our heads…until we got to see saturn.  Eric pointed it out in the sky and it looked like a regular star. Then we saw it through the telescope and you could actually see the rings!!! I seriously got giddy.

    Rings! I see saturn's rings!

    Jeff on the other hand was unimpressed with Saturn. After all my squealing he was expecting more.

    Saturn – I thought it would be cooler – like the Star Trek movie

    Although, he did agree with me that standing there seeing all those stars was flipping fantastic.

    We were up there for 2 hours, it was freezing but I didn’t want to go back down. Those stars were intoxicating.   Now when I look up at the sky I want more, milky way, saturns rings, nebulas, distant galaxies. I really can’t get enough of it.  We might go back while we’re still in Chile.

    According to Travel and Leisure magazine, these are the top 10 places to star gaze:

    • THE ATACAMA DESERT, CHILE
    • YANGTZE RIVER VALLEY, CHINA
    • TUSCANY, ITALY
    • KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH AFRICA
    • HAWAII
    • KIRUNA, SWEDEN
    • THE CARIBBEAN SEA
    • NEW MEXICO
    • LA FORTUNA, COSTA RICA
    • LOS ANGELES

    Here’s the link to the article. I don’t know how valid this list is, but you can be sure that if I find myself in one of these places I won’t be white water rafting or rock climbing, I’ll be waiting for darkness to stare up at the sky.

    www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/the-worlds-top-10-stargazing-spots/1

  • Pisco tasting- who knew pisco was so good, or what it even was.

    The big drink in Chile is pisco sours. They are offered everywhere and not just for tourists.  Everyone seems to be drinking them.   The first one we had was a freebie in a hotel in
    Antofagasta.  We drank it down, thought it was good, then ordered a glass of wine.

    But, a few nights ago we tried them again, and were amazed. They tasted similar to a margarita without the salt or nacho chips.

    I wasn’t even sure which part was the pisco, was it the alcohol or the juice?   It turns out pisco is a type of brandy made out of muscat grapes.

    And, as luck would have it, La Serena is near the Equi Valley which is a large producer of pisco.  And even luckier, you can go pisco tasting in the valley.

    I want more, let's go to the source and taste it there.

    We drove to the town of Vicuna which was worth the drive in itself.  The valley was full of pisco vineyards


    We started our pisco tasting at a distillery called Fuegos.  We pulled up and the guy parking his truck had to run and find the woman that runs the tasting room.  But, we were happy to see it  was open for tasting, more than we can say about our last tasting experience.

    This is the tasting room?

    The tastes were small, but this stuff is brandy, so a little went a long way for me.

    Next up was Capel. They are the granddaddy of pisco in this area.  Every sign in the nearby town of Vicuna had a Capel logo on it.

    Capel had a huge facility with a paid tour in  Spanish or English.  The English one was in session when we got there. Turns out it was only 5 minutes into the tour, but not wanting to miss a second of it (since we had paid the equivalent of $3 each) I insisted we go on the Spanish speaking tour.

    This meant I didn’t understand a single word for the hour long tour.  From what I gather, they take grapes, ferment the juice, put it in big tanks, then put it in some oak barrels, then distill it…or something like that.

    no clue what this is for

    This little boy on the tour understood about as much as I did . One thing I don’t think was covered in the tour, although I don’t really know, Peru also claims pisco as their national drink. There is a big controversy between the two countries over pisco.

    Then we got to the tastng room. You don’t need to understand Spanish to taste pisco. Well, actually it doesn’t hurt.

    The group was ushered into a room where we sat in a circle.  The guide prepared a tray with sample cups filled with different flavored pisco drinks.  They passed around the tray.

    I’ve been to enough wine tastings and coffee tastings to know, when presented with a tray like this, you should take one of each to compare.   No, actually not with pisco, you only take one.

    Then after the tray went around, the guide opened a bottle of a reserve pisco and started pouring samples behind a counter.  She asked if anyone would like to try this pisco.  Jeff and I ran to the counter. She handed out samples to Jeff and the other guys standing there. She looked at me and said in Spanish, “Are you sure YOU want one?”  I guess women don’t normally drink this kind of pisco.   Not knowing how to answer “Um, yeah, hand it over.”  I just said, “claro.” which means of course.

    When the tastings were over the rest of the group went into the sales room. Jeff, me and some others lingered and finished off the left-over samples on the tray, another trick I learned from coffee tastings.

    Sadly, our suitcases are too full to bring any pisco home, so I’m hoping we can find it in the USA.

    After a quick nap in the parking lot, we went back into the town of Vicuna where I took a lot of photos

    They have weird mannequins in Vicuna too.

    The pisco tastings were great in that pisco is good, the tasting rooms were actually open, the valley was beautiful, and the town of Vicuna is a fun place to wander around in by itself.

  • Chile – Peanut butter, stop signs and cheek kisses

    After three months in Argentina and less than two weeks in Chile I’m not exactly an expert on either country.  But, I’m going to pretend I am and tell you all the differences I’ve seen so far.

    Wine – the wine is good and cheap in both places.  Argentina was all about malbec.   Chile is all about cabernet sauvignon.  Luckily, we like both…a lot.

    Cheek kiss – In Argentina they cheek kissed all the time, everyone men and women.   Jeff was never completely comfortable cheek kissing other  men, but after three months he got used to it.  He did it enough that it became automatic.

    On our second night in Chile we ran into our taxi driver from the day before in a gas station.   He kissed me hello, chatted and he cheek kissed me goodbye.    Then a week later we were signing our lease in La Serena.  As he was leaving Claudio, our rental agent cheek kissed me.  He shook Jeff’s hand and Jeff automatically cheek kissed him.   It was totally normal, our Argentinian landlord was constantly cheek kissing Jeff.

    Claudio pulled back, laughed and quickly explained to Jeff that in Chile men only cheek kiss women, not other men.   Jeff was embarrassed, Claudio amused and I almost died laughing.

    Stop signs and lights – Chile has them, Argentina doesn’t.    After three months I still never knew how to cross the streets in the big city of Buenos Aires to the smallest little town, I just sort of waited for traffic to clear, said a little prayer and ran across.  In Chile there are actual stop signs and lights, and even walk signs.

    Butter – Both countries eat a lot of bread. In Argentina they do not eat it with butter, at least not in restaurants.  They serve it with different kinds of saucy spreads which are good. But, if I’m going to ruin my diet with a bunch of carbs, I like to include fat grams as well.

    Yum, butter, and also that other stuff.

    Money – you need it in both countries. In Chile you need more of it. Chile is much more expensive than Argentina, at least as a tourist.   But even more crazy is the exchange rate.  Argentinian pescos are 4 to one US dollar.   That got a little confusing, but even I was able to figure that out without a calculator.  Chilean pesos are  480 to one US dollar.  That is something I can’t do in my head. I can barely do it on a calculator.

    10,000 pesos? I'm rich…oh wait, no I'm not, that's only $20 US dollars.

    Peanut butter and granola bars – You can get a surprising amount of US type things  in Argentina and Chile – oatmeal, cereal, granola, potato chips, etc.  But some things you just couldn’t get in Argentina. Peanut butter was one.  US style granola bars were another.   This brand has an entire display in the grocery store with all kinds of US type products.

    Empanadas – They have them in both countries, but  they are very large in Chile.  The first time we had them in Chile we ordered 5, the normal amount we used to order in Salta.   The waitress must have been laughing her ass off when she prepared them. Five empanadas is enough for a family of 4. They are huge.

    Meat and seafood – This is obvious, but the meat in Argentina is amazing. The sea food and fish in Chile is amazing.

    They still have weird looking mannequins like in Argentina.

    This I think was a one off.  I haven’t seen this anywhere else in Chile or Argentina.

    fanciest public toilet ever

  • Finally serene in La Serena…

    …but it took awhile.   We spent so much energy and focus on how to get us and all our luggage to La Serena, we didn’t spend any time figuring out what to do when we got here.

    La Serena is a beach resort town with miles of beautiful beach and lots and lots of tourist apartments.

    one of these places must be available during the busy season, dirt cheap and wired for internet right?

    We bounced into town assuming that a perfect apartment would fall into our laps. We rented a hotel, got on the internet and started looking.    We learned several things quite quickly.

    1. February is prime vacation month in Chile.  The tourist apartments are full.

    2. Few tourist apartments have the internet.

    3. Tourist apartments in a beautiful resort town are quite expensive.

    4. The section of town with the expensive, non-internet tourist apartments is not close to the section of town with supermarkets.

    This sucks. What? There’s a beach behind me?  Who cares.

    It was like showing up in Daytona Beach, Florida during spring break and trying to rent a cheap apartment.

    Worse of all, our hotel only had instant coffee!!!  Since we were spending all our money on the hotel, we couldn’t even go out for real coffee.

    You expect me to drink instant? But were from Seattle.

    Between freaking out about how much money we were spending in hotels, choking down instant coffee, and searching for apartments, we barely even glanced at the beach.

    We knew we had to do something drastic.  So, we went to McDonalds.This was the first McDonalds we’ve been to on the entire trip, not because we’re only eating local food, more because McDonalds was weirdly expensive in Argentina.

    That Big Mac and fries did wonders to reset my travel barometer.   A little culinary visit to the USA and I was ready.  Not only was it delicous, it left me a little sick and ready to get back to really “being” in Chile.

    After that magical trip to McDonalds things really did start to fall into place.   Jeff found one last Via packet (Starbucks “ready brew” coffee) hidden in his suitcase.

    We found an apartment that was almost affordable, we rented a car, bought groceries, and most importantly, bought a French press.

    thank God
    breakfast in our new apartment

    And then we finally noticed the beach.   It’s funny how easy we get caught up in the details and “problems” of traveling.  When I emailed my friend Dan complaining about the high cost of apartments here I said, “The problem, is we’re in a Chilean beach resort.”  His reply was  “I wouldn’t define being in a Chilean beach resort as a problem.”    And he was right.   It’s so easy to get bogged down on what isgoing wrong we look right past what’s going right.

  • Salta to La Serena – maybe rain isn’t so bad

    I hate rain.   I don’t like thunderstorms, drizzle, sprinkles, mist, or showers.   So, after 2 months in Salta during the rainy season, a Chilean  desert sounded like a good change.

    Everything started well enough.   Our landlord Bernardo drove us to the Salta airport.  Getting Jeff’s bike suitcase into the car was hard.

    That's so not going to work.

    But it fit and after some hefty luggage overage charges we flew to Iquique, Chile without problems.  When we landed we weren’t allowed off the plane until someone came through the aisles to disinfect us with a can of insecticide.

    I find it hard to believe this really did anything bug-wise

    Iquique is in the NW part of Chile. It is on the ocean, but is also on the outskirts of the Atacama desert, the driest place on earth.

    The beach was beautiful and the town was full of brightly colored houses against sand dunes.  Being an old mining town it felt like the old west.


    We stopped at the bus station and asked about leaving for the city of Antofagasta the next day.   There were many buses with quite a few seats on each one.  They weren’t sure if all our luggage would make it on the bus which caused me hours of anxiety, but Jeff assured me that with buses leaving hourly, surely one of them could take our luggage.

    That bus looks great, can't wait to take it.

    We left the bus station and got an Iquique beer.

    Jeff tired of hearing me worry about the luggage.

    The next day we got to the bus station with all our luggage and what do you know, all the buses were sold out.   Why didn’t we buy the tickets the day before when we were at the station? Good question. This is why we can’t be on the show Amazing Race.

    Another day in Iquique would have been fine except we had a non-refundable hotel and flight out of Antofagasta for the next day.    I stayed with the luggage while Jeff went on a reality TV type “challenge.” Find us a way out of town.  Two hours later he returned with Chilean cell phones for both of us and a rental car. Maybe he could be on Amazing Race.

    Plan B

    The drive from Iquique to Antofagasta was amazing.  For seven hours we had the coast on one side and dry desert on the other. Besides a few small mining towns along the way there was no signs of life. No trees, grass, tumble weed, birds, nothing.  This desert never gets rain, N-E-V-E-R. Entire years go by with no rain. After 17 years in Seattle and 2 months in Salta during the rainy season, this seemed like a great place to live.

    The first two hours were breath taking. Driving this close to the water for hours reminded me of Caramel, CA.  I was ready to move here.

    Hours three and four were still beautiful but, I realized that perhaps no plants and animals lived here because there was no rain. And land without plants or animals is kind of stark.

    We stopped for lunch in a tiny little mining town where this stray puppy sat by our table. He would have been cute no matter what, but after 4 hours driving in the desert without any sign of live he was especially adorable.

    Desert puppies are especially cute.
    Wait is that a bird? No, just a piece of paper.

    After six hours of driving I half expected a spaceship to land next to the car.  So much land without plants and animals started to feel like the surface of Mars.

    could you ever get sick of this view? Yes, after 6 hours you can.

    It started to feel like a highway treadmill, no matter how long we drove there was just blue ocean on one side, and dry, brown sand on the other.  Once in awhile we’d see a small town flash by in the rear-view mirror.

    It’s amazing to see these small towns and some really really poor people living with an amazing view, but hard hard landscape.

    Then at almost the end of the drive we came across this cemetery.

    Is that a cemetery on the right?

    We drove right by it at first and had to do a double take. It was shocking to see this cemetery with all wooden grave markers in the middle of nowhere.


    It was a far cry from the elaborate cemeteries we had seen in Buenos Aires.  It was eerie to see these wooden, weather beaten graves in the middle of such  lifeless desert.

    Then, after 7 hours, we made it to Antofagasta,  We made the flight the next day and landed in La Serena. We both were relieved to see some grass near the runway.