Pacific, Pisco and Planets
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2005
1
6
12
Trip End
May 21, 2005
Copiapo,
Chile
Sunday, February 27, 2005
After our biking adventures over the Argentine and Chilean Andes we thought we could do with a rest so we decided to check out the Pacific beaches of the Litoral Central which starts close to Santiago.
We started off in a small fishing village on the Coast called Quintay. Using our "trusty" guide book we manage to stay in the rankest accommodation so far. "Spotless and romantic" the book wrote - more like a research centre for the breeding of biting insects with a kitchen that looked like Charly had recently been cooking there
01.Dan getting burnt
.On the beach the sun got to work and burnt through the first 4 layers of my skin, taking roughly 20 minutes. Now I've hit layer 5 or 6 I'm pleased to report that I'm going a nice charred salmon colour. Seema is now so dark that I lose her whenever we turn the lights out.
After some more beach-life in a town called Maitencillo we hit on north to a place called Vicuņa. This area has among the most transparent skies in the world and the most observatories. Itīs home to the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere (imaginatively called VLT - Very Large Telescope) with four 8.2-metre telescopes. We went to one which was open to the public and is home to a massive 30 cm telescope! We got to see Saturn at 250x magnification (it was still pretty small) but oddly, more amazing was looking closely at our own moon (see photo). Even more amazing than the moon was the staggering stupidity of our tour group who ask questions such as:
"Can the moon repair its craters?"
"Why can't we live on Jupiter?" (our Guide had just told us it's a gas planet with a surface temprature of about -200 degrees)
"What is the difference between a sun and a moon" (I knew the answer to this when I was 4)
It took all our strength not to laugh when a Dutch tourist insisted on taking a digital movie of a star system that hadnīt changed for a billion years and was so far away that if it ever did change it would take a billion more years until we could see it
02.The fish market in Maitencillo
. Vicuņa is in the Elqui Valley which is famous for its grapes which are used to make the Chilean national drink, Pisco (a powerful distilled wine also made in Peru and the cause of many nights of debauchery for Vicki and I in 1998 - Seema). We decided to visit Pisco Elqui (the home of Pisco) by bike. We went with Eduardo (our super-cool bike guide) who we have nominated The Nicest Man in Chile.
Seema (bless her) is the only person I know who contradicts that timeless expression "you never forget how to ride a bike". This time though (and to her credit) the saddle was raised above Hobbit-height which made mounts and dismounts a bit trickier (she needed a small wall to help her on to the saddle. The ride was beautiful (50 km each way) with lush green vineyards set against semi-barren mountains. We visited the oldest Pisco distillery (Tres Eres).There was a tasting at the end of the tour and Seema insisted I try some (you know me, anything other than beer is the work of Satan). Pisco tastes rather like fermented cat sick.
Anyway, we are now in a town called Copiapo (means cup of gold in Entish or something) which is on the edge of the Atacama desert which stretches 1000km north into Peru. Weīre going to travel into the desert to the highest active volcano in the world and see how ill with altitude sickness we can make ourselves. After that weīll be in San Pedro de Atacama which will be our last stop before entering Bolivia.
We are loving the guestbook so please keep it coming.
