Next up: La Serena- or the “City of Churches.” This city is the second oldest in Chile, and the architecture shows it. Old churches (some now restored/re-built) are done in a style known as ‘Colonial Revival.’ The restoration of the city was led by former President Gabriel Videla, who was born in La Serena. Interestingly, much of the material was brought from the United States as counterweight on boats destined to return with Chilean copper. As we explored, we saw some of these ‘new’ old buildings. President Videla was also the Chilean President who first got into politics as a leftist which support of the communist party, but ended up swinging politically to the right in order to squash troublesome labor movements (which weren’t helping the economy by striking) and also in order to appease the United States and gain more access to their foreign investments… and a hefty $342 million dollar loan. Videla - despite having appointed communist members to his own cabinet - eventually outlawed communism in Chile. Communists like Pablo Neruda were now in an illegal party and the government attempted to arrest them! Chaos followed.
Our overnight bus arrived in La Serena quite early in the morning on Saturday the 22nd of March, and we were exhausted. Thankfully we lucked out and a hostel owner was waiting at the bus station to take us back to his reasonably priced rooms which thankfully had WiFi. Our plan for the day was to research rental car agencies and hopefully get something sorted for that afternoon, as we had a reservation to visit Cerro Tololo Observatory at 1:00 PM.
We didn’t expect the process would be quite complicated, mostly because of the lack of rental cars with automatics! (And the fact that the University which gives out Cerro Tololo ‘permits’ wasn’t open on the weekends, despite the tour being on the weekend.) Thankfully we were able to arrange to visit later in the week. The tiredness wore on us, and we spent the following day relaxing, booking ourselves on a tour in the Elqui Valley for Monday.
The Elqui Valley is a beautiful stretch of land filled with vineyards, Pisco production plants, and raisins drying in the sun – anything to do with grapes can take place in this dry, arid area of Chile. At the same time, a dry, arid desert is excellent for another craft Chile is known for besides wine – stargazing. Cerro Tololo is out in the valley, along with dozens of other tourist and scientific observatories of global importance.
As we drove through the valley, we stopped at a little Papaya plantation to observe some of the plants. Papayas, along with avocados and artichokes (and grapes!) are grown in the valley as well. The papayas are typically not sold off the tree because they are difficult to prepare, so most plantations made their own papaya slices, jams, and candies for purchase. We chose papaya and manjar candies. Yum!
Eventually we made it down to Pisco Elqui, a town named after the drink ‘Pisco’ in order to help Chile’s claim (the Peruvians claim the drink as well) to the alcoholic drink of pisco. We didn’t try our pisco here, however. We had a little free time to walk around the church in the town center, before heading for a delicious goat lunch at unique solar-powered restaurant which used outdoor ovens to cook their food. After lunch (and after a brewery whose beer was so bad, I won’t even mention it!) it was pisco time! For this we went to a former distillery called Pisquera Aba.
Pisquera Aba wasn’t currently producing any pisco as they had an accident in the plant which had yet to be fixed. However, we did get to see their processing equipment and try samples of their prior batches! Pisco is made with grapes as well – it is actually just wine processed in a slightly different way. The grapes are picked by hand then macerated and given 2 weeks to ferment. The wine is distilled in copper stills, then put away for quite some time. It takes 2 years sitting in wooden French Oak barrels before the mixture ripens. The resulting Pisco ends up with 40% alcohol after a dilution process with water. We got to try a few of the alcohols and mixes. Colin and I agreed that the mango sour (pisco mixed with mango juice) was the tastiest! So sweet, but so nice.
Our city for the evening was a cute little small town named Vicuña. It was necessary for us to stay overnight because we had an observatory tour booked for later that evening. It was a pleasure as well, because the town was a welcome change from the busy and more industrial La Serena. The town of Vicuna was established to help secure the Elqui Valley for Chile and it is currently a quaint little town in the desert.
Vicuna is known as being one of the hometowns of a famous Chilean poet, Lucila Godoy – also known by her penname Gabriela Mistral. At a museum in Vicuna which houses some of Mistral’s possessions, I learned that Mistral was born in Vicuna into a poor family. Her father abandoned the family, and Mistral learned to become a hardworking young woman at an early age. She went on to have romantic, often grief-filled, relationships with both men and women which would profoundly shape her poetry. She also adopted her nephew, who killed himself at 17-years-old. These tragedies shaped her work, and she won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her poetry. She was also quite influential in feminism and politics, traveling around the world giving speeches calling for more aid and rights for the poor, the children, and for women.
Later on I went to the small town of Monte Grande and saw the location of Mistral’s primary school, which was also her home because her older sister was the school’s teacher. Near the school is a beautiful spot on a hill which was selected for her burial location. I climbed up and saw her gravestone, and got a great view of the Elqui Valley from the top. Here is an example of one of Mistral’s famous poems:
I Am Not Alone
The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!
The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !
The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!
© Gabriela Mistral
We chose two different telescope experiences while in the small town of Vicuna – one ‘lunar’ (although the moon didn’t appear!) and one ‘solar.’ One of our evenings in Vicuna was spent traveling out into the desert for an evening observatory tour. This tour to Observatorio del Pangue was fantastic! The group of about 10 people met in the main square of Vicuna and piled into a car which shuttled us up to the observatory, passing by a fox and a rabbit along the way. Once we got there we were divided into two different groups. Thankfully, our English-speaking group was just 4 people! Because of this we got loads of time to look into the different telescopes and even make some special requests!
We started by simply looking out at the night sky – it was amazing how much you could see due to the dry sky, high altitude, and lack of city lights. Our guide pointed out the Milky Way and the two (seemingly nearby) ‘clouds’ – the large and small Magellanic Clouds. He showed us where different constellations were (Orion, Taurus, Scorpio, etc.), and it was clear to us how completely different the Southern sky was from the Northern. We even got to see the International Space Station above us!Our journey with the telescopes (specifically a $45,000 16-inch T400 Schmidt) began with a fascinating look at Jupiter. We could see the red and orange colors of the large planet, along with its numerous moons.
Our guide took time pointing out to us different stars, such as Eta Carinae, which is known for being a supernova ‘impostor,’which produced as much light as a supernova but was not one. There was one star, the M1 Supernova remnant, which is the ‘leftover’ from a supernova which exploded nearly 1,000 years ago. We also had the chance to look at some of the brightest stars in the sky – including Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae, which both contain millions of stars. Along with these bright stars, we witnessed some super bright (and beautiful) galaxies known as NGC 4945 and NGC 3532.
The Sombrero Galaxy (part of the Virgo constellation) was one of my favorites because of its spiral galaxy shape (which we could only see through the telescopes as a thin line) and its supermassive black hole in the center. Colin’s favorite was the Tarantula Nebula, which looks kind of like a tarantula and is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud we observed with the naked eye earlier in the evening.
I asked if we could take a look at one of my favorite star clusters – the ‘Jewel Box.’ I had first seen this group of stars while stargazing in the Atacama a few years ago, and I thought it would make a great group to look at because it is made of bright, different colored stars! Later in the evening we could see Mars rising in the sky, and got a look at the Red Planet with the telescope, although a bit blurry.
After the conclusion of that evening’s observatory tour, I was left wanting more. I decided to book some time viewing the sun with a high-powered, $10,000 solar telescope. The guide (who was really just a guy with a telescope) told me about the sun: how it is a near-perfect sphere, how it is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium. I was able to get some fantastic pictures since I had the telescope all to myself! Although I did have to keep moving the telescope every couple of minutes, which annoyed me at first – I thought my glasses might be knocking into the telescope! I wondered why, until I realized the Earth’s rotation was the cause. We’re moving pretty fast! Take a look at the huge solar flares I captured on camera – each plasma ‘burst’ is many times bigger than the Earth and they connect regions of different magnetic polarity.
The Elqui Valley explored, Colin and I returned back to La Serena in order to reserve a rental car for following day. We’re off on a road trip together!
Francesca
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