Star-gazing in the desert

Sunset at Valle de la luna, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

As usual there is never time to update this blog in real time. Not that I mind it that much for the more time passes the more we can think back on all we did and experienced. We are almost at the end of our journey and we feel time is really flying away. Anyway, I haven't got time for the blog mainly because we are now reaching places were internet is more of a touristic luxury rather than the fact we are used to in Europe.

 
To sum it up quickly, from Paraguay we went to the north-west of Argentina, which is a totally different Argentina! For the first time we saw small people and indigenous faces, those you don't find in Buenos Aires were they are all supposed 'Europeans', and at the same time it is those indigenous faces that were in my imaginary of Southamerica before coming here.

Cerro de los siete colores, Purmamarca, Argentina

Pachamama (mother earth) has gifted this region with breathtaking landscapes made of high gentle mountains with the most beautiful colours (for me unexpected), powerful rivers and lots of inspiration for our fantasy. Geological phenomena have eroded this landscape giving the most amazing shapes and colours to rocks and mountains. The road we took to reach towns and villages in the area desappears in the immensity of the landscape! Amazing!

Two days ago we made it to San Pedro de Atacama, the driest desert in the world! There are about 15 milliliters of rain per year, clearly a ridiculous amount. It is so dry and clear that staring at the sky at night is one shocking experience, expecially for those who come from a light-polluted place like the Netherlands and have no idea what is hidden up there in the sky. So, we found this very funny French astronomer that years and years ago left the cloudy French sky to came here for the sake of his profession and passion...Today he offers 'star tours', brings you to a dark isolated place in the middle of the desert to watch the stars and explains you 'how it works'. 

We reached his place around 8.30, way after the sunset and he welcomed us into the hall of his house were we all sat in a circle, with only a candle lighting our faces. After a very entertaining explanation about the basics of astronomy, we could finally go outside to gaze the stars...It was an amazing shocking vision! The astronomer stood up, opened the door and walked outised...the Milky Way was shining right above his head like dividing the dark blue sky in two parts...We saw thousands of stars, the most sparkling ones and a dozen of shooting stars! We imagined shapes of constellations, found our 'neighbours' (stars only 4,5 lightyears far away!) and saw a shooting star which we believed was actually a superfast sunset! It was simply incredible. Then we moved to the telescopes and as soon as we saw Saturn with its ring and satellites we were as surprised as little children! And the spectacle went on with planetary nebulas, the jewel box and Mars...Hopefully I will keep star-gazing back home!