The fantastical adventures of Colin and Francesca: March 2014

Once we reached Copiapo we were eager to find a place to stay. Colin managed to find a place for pretty cheap, and we then started on researching how to get to the nearby National Park Nevado Tres Cruces. This park is at an altitude of 3,700 meters, so we were ready for possible headaches and drinking loads of water. We thought about driving up there ourselves with another rental car, and in retrospect the drive itself would have been really easy (despite the altitude, the road was mostly paved, not very narrow, and for the most part not too high off the ground) – but we couldn’t manage to find a car that we could return without paying for two days. And we didn’t want to pay $300 USD for a car for two days plus another $150 USD for gas. Yikes. A better option was taking a tour with Experiencia Atacama where we didn’t have to worry about driving with altitude headaches.

We on booked for the following day and met our driver outside at 8:00 am. The tour started by taking us to a 19th century abandoned mining town called Puquios. There wasn’t much to see besides flattened tin cans which were nearly mummified in the strong desert wind and heat.

Our scenic drive took us through canyons and valleys of different colors. There were volcanic rocks and plenty of dry grasses and plants which are able to successfully grow in volcanic soil. until we reached the high-altitude salt lake of Laguna Santa Rosa. Beautiful and calm, and dotted with different animals including the rarest flamingos in the world, the pink Andean flamingos, and a group of timid vicunas. We watched as the vicunas walked across the salt flats, but unfortunately didn’t get a picture. Fantastic to see though! There were more flamingos around and they were flying and scooping up water to filter feed algae just below us with their yellow and black bills. While their bodies are pale pink in color, their legs are yellow and they only have three toes on each foot.

Unfortunately, as we drove around the “National Park” which is supposed to be a protected area, we saw tons of mining companies exploiting the area and destroying the landscape, digging random and scarring holes everywhere looking for minerals. This mining activity is extremely harmful to the flamingos and poisons their water supply with the toxin borax. Borax doesn’t have any effect on humans, which creates even more problems for the flamingos suffering from it – and could be a reason why we didn’t see many flamingos hanging around at the park.

Chile doesn’t seem to be doing anything to stop the exploratory mining activities in their own national park – in fact, Tres Cruces gets so little attention from their government that they can’t even be bothered to put CONAF park rangers there to collect the mandatory entrance fee. Looks similar to the situation I discovered in Argentina’s La Payunia Reserve which is being exploited for its oil and thus not manned or marketed to tourists by the government.

Continuing our journey we came to the a giant (8,300 hectares) stretch of flat salt called the Salar de Maricunga. We drove right up to the salt and got to get out and walk around on it, picking up some to sample crushing it between our fingers. Yes, it was salt. Smile When the water that used to be in the area evaporated, the salt didn’t have a way to reach the sea – so there it sits. One of the other highlights for us was seeing the world’s highest (almost 7,000 meters high!) volcano, named Ojos del Salado or Eyes of Salt. This active volcano was awesome to see, even if it was just a pit stop.

Finally we arrived at Laguna Verde. The first thing we saw was the dead body or mummy of a cow. The extremely dry climate (lack of bugs, and lack of moisture) of the Puna and Atacama Desert region ensures that anything which dies out here, stays out here for a long time after. It was crazy because the animal sill had its (though very dry and tough) skin in the front but was completely bleached white bones in the back. I got some pictures with the fascination.

We drove on to the viewpoint. Here Colin and I changed into our swim suits and jumped into a naturally hot pool of water inside a little shack by the lake. We could have sat in two of the outdoor pools, with equally warm water, but it was really windy so we opted to sit inside. We enjoyed a soak in the nice warm water for around 30 minutes as our driver prepared our lunch of soup and tuna – along with a bit of wine!

On the way back we were able to convince our driver to take a different route, one that would be a bit more scenic, although slightly more windy. We were so glad we took the other route! Some of the most beautiful mountains and valleys we saw that day we on the way back to Copiapo.

The next day we decided to visit a couple of museums before jumping on the overnight bus to Calama. In the middle of the night we found out that there was a big 8.2 earthquake in Iquique – which was one of the cities next on our list. Because of this, many people were really eager to head north to see their families and protect their homes from looting. We couldn’t get a direct bus to our next destination, San Pedro de Atacama, but we bought one for Calama and figured we’d change and continue the 1.5 hours to San Pedro the following morning. This gave us the whole day to see some museums and relax before the evening bus.

Copiapo’s Regional Museum had a few interesting pieces for us – such as a rare piece of rock called orbicular granite. This stone is found on the coast near Copiapo, and it is a phenomenon. It has ‘orbiculars’ or sphere-shaped rocks which have formed around grain cooling in a magma chamber. We were lucky to get to see some without having to head all the way out to the coast. But the best item though was a puma covered in salt and mummified which was found at Laguna Verde. Perhaps it was after the cow we saw mummified there? The desert is a harsh place.

One of the many exhibits was on the 33 miners who were trapped in a mine north of Copiapo in 2010. There was a ‘cave in’ at a mine near San Jose which buried 33 men deep underground, 5 kilometers from the mine’s entrance. Luckily there was a refugio where the miners were able to survive for 69 days underground while the rescue attempt was ongoing. While the miners were underground they managed to send up a note saying they are alive, which taped to a drill bit which was drilling an exploratory hole to find them – a note we saw in the museum. We saw another ‘capsule’ which was used to bring the miners one-by-one to the surface in this museum as well.

The Mineralogical Museum of Copiapo is the most complete in Chile, having pictures of important mines in the area decorating its walls and tons of interesting and rare crystals inside its cases. There was another, larger piece of orbicular granite here as well. There was one piece of silver which, when exposed to oxygen, its form changes drastically – I saw an image of it from a book before exposure, and a chunk of rock from after exposure – very different! I have shown a few of the more colorful or patterned examples here.

That evening we took an overnight bus to Calama, and the following morning we changed for San Pedro de Atacama. Back on the tourist trail.

Francesca

Colin’s first car was a Toyota Rav 4 – and he took it to really high altitudes! We were excited to rent a car as we hadn’t done so in a while, and heading out to a few things around La Serena was the perfect opportunity. Our first stop was Park National Fray Jorge, 100 kilometers South of La Serena.

We arrived at the park just after it opened and proceeded to buy our tickets and get a map. While we were doing this we spotted our first animal – a cute little fox! The fox watched us for a few minutes, sitting down and using its foot to scratch behind its ear. It was gone before we could get back to the car to get the camera, but it was awesome to see an animal in a park which otherwise seems pretty deserted! But it wasn’t even the last, as we drove up to the information center to read a few of the boards on display we managed to spot a few colorful birds!

After a really crazy drive uphill on a narrow and very difficult road (but Colin drove expertly despite the height we were climbing!) we arrived at Fray Jorge’s only walking trail. This park is unique in that it is a Valdivian rain forest surrounded completely by desert, the northernmost Valdivian rain forest in existence. It’s strange that such a forest can exist in the desert and the reason is because of a large amount of condensed coastal fog called camanchaca which then move inland. While it doesn’t rain, these clouds create enough moisture to form a Valdivian-style rain forest in the middle of the driest desert on earth.

As we walked slowly through the desert we noticed tons of new plants we had never seen before, most of them really dry and spiky in appearance – but they still held enough life for a few lizards and birds.

Eventually the walk took us towards the coast where the fog comes in from, and then into the clearly Valdivian rain forest park. It was in this part that we saw many familiar sights of deep green moss-covered trees which reminded us of walks we did in the south.

We didn’t have a map with us (winging it this time!) so once we left Fray Jorge we took a roundabout way to Valle del Encanto. Still, we ended up arriving at the monument with plenty of time to look around! The Enchanted Valley contains dozens of petroglyphs and pictographs divided into three different ‘sections.’ These images were created by the Molle people between 500-700 BC, a group of people who had grown from a hunter-gatherer way of life to becoming a people based in village life.

We saw many little baseball-sized stone holes in groups all over the area which are known as ‘tacit stones.’ Different stones cups were used for different various purposes including mixing food such as corn and quinoa, paint, medicinal flowers, and hallucinogenic substances. As we walked around we kept seeing evidence of chinchillas everywhere – their tunnels, their squeaks, and tons of their poo. They ran around in front of us, jumping into trees and their tunnels!

There is also evidence the Molle people mixed and traded with other groups including the Diaguita and Inca peoples. The materials found in their items and the images we saw depicted on the stones indicate contact. Quite a few of the stone images were quite similar to images the Diaguita and Inca created themselves, such as some with traditional Incan headpieces. Many of the images were pretty difficult to see (quite faded) due to the wear and tear over the years.

The final part of the park contained some of the most interesting artwork, and some areas for bathing which used to be filled with water. Aptly named, they are the ‘Incan Bathtubs.’ After walking around this area, it started to get quite hot for us and we headed back to the car – but not before a quick sighting of a snake with a yellow stripe on its head!

That evening we drove to the small (and horrible) town of Ovalle, which was jam-packed with people and so full of one-way streets that it was a nightmare to get anywhere. After getting something to eat we checked out everything in town but didn’t seem to have much luck – the museum was already closed, and all the hotels we found were really overpriced or completely full. This was one of the dumpiest cities we’d stayed in and the prices were crazy for what you got – $60 or $70 USD per night is just too much for a little dirty town like Ovalle. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a choice and after 2 hours we finally found something for $50 USD and crashed there after paying and a few slices of pizza, thanks to Colin.

We had to get up super early the next morning to drive up to the National Monument Pichasca for 8:30 am when it opened. We had to go this early in order to make it to Cerro Tololo (back near Vicuna) by the afternoon – a pretty ambitious goal. Unfortunately when we arrived there were only a handful of construction workers around. We had to ask them to call the park guard to come (1 hour after the posted opening time) and let us in. Because of this we ended up making it around about 75% of the area – but managed to hit some of the main spots first. One of these was an ancient rock shelter used by the Molle people. In a museum in La Serena I saw a diagram of the site showing where the archeologists had found the different items used by the Molle, as well as the pieces themselves!

One of the other areas we made it to was a few sections with fossilized trees and bark. The best example was an entire fossilized araucaria tree that is 70 million-years-old. What a fantastic example! There was also some different types of stones and fossils we walked around and saw.

Soon it was time to leave. We planned to only stay at the monument until around 10:00 am in order to drive to Cerro Tololo Observatory for our 1:15 pm tour. We ended up taking a super high altitude, really narrow and long winding round around the edges of the nearby mountains. It was a beautiful drive, really scenic, but also pretty scary. We were at least 2,400 meters in altitude, and the drops just off the road were 400-500 meters. Freaky. Colin did a great job of navigating around the mountains, and racing us back to La Serena, and then towards Vicuna for our tour.

The mountains required slow, careful driving, so we didn’t arrive at the observatory until nearly 2:00 pm. Thankfully we got lucky and after the security guard called up he informed us that we’d be allowed to join the tour, as it had been delayed anyways! Again, on we drove up into the mountains until we could see the shiny domes above us. They held telescopes we were about to see.

Cerro Tololo is an observatory whose story begins in the 1960’s. It was built by Americans, in agreement with Chile, in order to get better images of the Southern Hemisphere night sky. The site was only chosen after a 0.41 meter telescope had been tested on the mountain – after being brought up there by mule. At the beginning, the way to travel to Cerro Tololo was by mule, as there was no road from Vicuna. The site now contains some of the largest telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere.

We arrived at the top and got some photos while waiting for the tour to start. The first thing we saw was a massive telescope housed inside this huge, shiny, ‘bubble-like’ case. It was quite a big machine, and we realized how big once the dome opened up and we could see it in the light. Our guide moved the telescope and showed us its details. After a quick walk through the display room, where scientists sit looking at computer monitors which show the images from the telescopes, we went to see an ever bigger device: the Dark Energy Camera or DECam.

The Dark Energy Camera is a necessary tool for the ‘Dark Energy Survey’ project. This international project aims to answer the question ‘Why is the universe speeding up?’ We know the Big Bang is the cause of the universe’s expansion, but the universe isn’t just expanding out but speeding up in this expansion as well. This 1998 discovery conflicts with Einstein’s theory of General Relatively which tells us the universe should be slowing down due to gravity. In order to answer this question, a massive ‘Dark Energy’ (the term for this unknown force acting against gravity) Camera was created to attach onto the Blanco 4-m Telescope and take images of the night sky over a 5 year period to ‘map’ the sky.

We walked into the room contained the 570-Megapixel DECam and I was in awe. The thing was huge! We learned that the camera itself is very sensitive to redshifted light from far-off galaxies, and is thus perfect for mapping the sky and giving us massive amounts of data which could help to answer the question of the Dark Energy Survey. It was so exciting to get my picture taken in front of such an impressive and important machine. We couldn’t stay long since the camera was being used while we were there – which made the experience even cooler.

Colin and I returned from Cerro Tololo quite exhausted, dropped our rental car back off, and found a nice large room in a small hostel for the night. The next morning we planned to catch a bus to Copiapo after checking out, but I was really keen on seeing the La Serena’s archeology museum first. It was free on Sundays (which I didn’t know at first) and I got to see some nice displays on the indigenous people (including the Molle) and 3 different sections of Diaguita pottery. There was even a moai in the museum which had been brought over from Easter Island. It had been through a lot– spray painted on, pissed on, and even decapitated. It had also been on tour all around Europe. Thankfully the insurance money post-decapitation paid for the moai to be repaired and have its own little room in the museum to protect it. Colin ended up coming to the museum after me, concerned I hadn’t brought any money to get in. I got to show him everything I had seen, starting with the really creepy shrunken heads from Ecuador.