The adventures of tin tin in chile
Trip Start
Dec 31, 2007
1
4
Trip End
Ongoing
La serena, Chile
Monday, December 31, 2007
couple). ok, living in l.a. you can see stars. unfortunately the stars one sees have egos, demands, and "needs". i
am not a fan of these kind of stars
humboldt penguins
. i´m way more interested in the ones imbedded in the firmament above my wee little head. chile is famous for it´s observatories. one of the things you can do here is go to them and star gaze. so the first night that i was in possesion of my senses i booked a trip to the mamalluca observatory. we get there when there is still a bit of light in the sky and go into the building for a lecture. we´re told about the milky way, neblulas (nebulae?) and magellan clouds (look ém up, they´re fascination) and what it means when stars flash red. then we go upstairs to the telescope. we see sirius and another star and then...a star cluster. o.m.g. i thought i was gonna die! (rina, that´s for you) you can´t even SEE it with your naked eye but thru a telescope, BAM! like fairy dust lightly sprinkled, like a bit of salt when you knock it over at the table, like saliva after a vigorous sneeze! just gorgeous! then we walk outside and everyone gasps. stars are everywhere. masses of them, you can actually SEE the milky way! it flows before your eyes! and holy shiite muslims, THE MAGELLAN CLOUDS! right freakin THERE! huge and obvious! i can actually SEE another galaxy! two of them in fact! clear! seriously?
they´ve always been there? wow. at another telescope we see the nebula that is the center star of orion´s knife. and another star formation that looks like a massive hill of glitter whose sides have slid down and leave a glitter halo around it
sea lions
. we see mars too which is totally anticlimactic after the other things. it is all spectacular though, the night is clear and chilly and the sky is overwhelming. blur your eyes a bit and it all turns to flashes of sequins in a dark club. the next day me and all my new bff´s (best friends forever, duh) go to damas island. to get there we take a fishing boat to a couple of outlying islands where the wildlife rules the land. while going there, pods of bottlenosed dolphins swam before us. when we got to the first island, the guide said, "look there! a sea lion!" ummm, i saw nothing, just a rocky cliff. as i searched, i started to panic because i didn´t see them, my eyes refocused and they were right in front of me! wow! they´re huge and sooo cute! and they were all over the place! once i saw them i couldn´t stop seeing them. they snuggle together, they even fut thier arm around the one next to them!
there were little baby ones and alpha male ones. i got some great pix of them. so onward we went, there were humboldt penguins which are charcoal grey and white and they, too blend effortlessly with the rocks surrounding them. we saw loads of birds and thier droppings all over the place. the clifftops are whitish with bird poo making them look ice capped. on the boat ride back we got soaked by sea spray and froze our asses off the whole way back. tonight we are having a bbq at the hostel and then we´ll walk to the beach and drink chilean wine on the
sand and watch the fireworks at midnight. a perfect beginning to the new year and a beautiful finish to the last. hope you all have a marvellous celebration and that you create memories you can savor for the rest of your life...
love
tin tin
