9th Nov. 2016
Nearly two years ago, when we started planning this trip, we went to the Destinations show in London and stopped at the Chilean Tourist Board’s stand to ask them where we should go in Northern Chile. They marked off three places on the map in their brochure – Parque Lauca, Bahia Inglesa and Elqui Valley. We have already covered off the first two of these, and now we are about to go to the third.
We’re heading south again – this is a very long and thin country – five and a half hours to the coastal town of La Serena, and then inland another hour or so up the Elqui Valley to the town of Vicuña. By the time we’ve done all this, we’ll be about ¾ of the way from Arica to Santiago – and its only taken us (nearly) four weeks to get this far. We’re back on TurBus for the first leg having had poor experiences with both trips on Pulman – it is comfortable enough just a bit shabby. It’s looking like we were spoiled by our experience with buses in Mexico.
The journey to La Serena is uneventful – so much so that the highlight is when we have to stop at a level crossing to let a goods train go by. Once there, we find an office in the bus station selling tickets for a local bus up to Vicuña and have just settled down for the hour’s wait until its departure when the lady selling tickets comes up and explains that the bus has broken down and so the trip has been cancelled. She takes out a map of the town and shows us where we should go to catch an alternative, so we load up and walk across town.
Once again, everything worked out. The bus was waiting exactly where we were told it would be and after a quick check that it was heading to the right place we bundle aboard. It’s a little over an hour up the Elqui Valley to Vicuña and, once we leave town, we are in for a surprise – the floor of the valley is all green! This is the first cultivated land we have seen since we left Arica. We knew that Elqui was one of the five Pisco producing regions of Chile but it is still a surprise to see a mosaic of vineyards on the valley floor and the lower slopes of the hills.
The river Elqui is only a trickle and we wonder if this is just dry season – until we come to a large dam with a massive lake behind it. Now we know where the water for the vines comes from! Hopefully this also means that the water in our hostel isn’t going to be desalinated and so we’ll be able to lather up properly in the shower. This turns out to be a vain hope as when we arrive, although we have been upgraded to a cute looking cabaña we can’t get the shower to deliver warm water. Given that it is hot and sunny outside, this isn’t a massive problem but it does mean a rather perfunctory shower!
We did get a warm welcome at our hostel that included a complementary juice and homemade ice cream which went down extremely well. Even better, our host, Richard, turned out to be Lebanese and spoke excellent English. He asked us what we planned to do while we were here, and when we mentioned that we wanted to do a stargazing session at an observatory, he said he’d just arranged such a trip this evening for another couple. Did we want to join them. Without knowing any of the details (e.g. the price) we said yes (everything just sort of works out!). Its an 8pm off which gave us a little time to explore the main square and grab a bite to eat.
To the extent that we had any expectations, we had expected to be driven up one of the nearby hills to a pukka observatory with a telescope located in a dome. Instead, we were driven to Alfa Aldea, a vineyard with a couple of telescopes located in a small amphitheatre just 5 minutes outside of town. Being so close to town, there was a bit of a yellow glare from the lights in town to the east but the bigger impact on the view of the stars was the very bright half-moon bang overhead. Prior to the stargazing we were treated to a welcome glass of wine and a less welcome 3D video on the history of the Earth and moon in 5 mins. More interestingly, we got to ‘listen’ to the sun and Jupiter with the signals from radio telescopes being converted into audio. (Jupiter makes whale-like noises, the sun more whistles and buzzes).
For the stargazing, we used a reflector telescope around 6 feet long and with a bottom mirror of around 12” diameter. I’ve just been reading about Herschel, and by all accounts it was a very similar telescope that he used to discover Uranus – only he made his himself, casting and polishing his own mirror. Kudos to Herschel is all I can say. Our guides were a pair of Physics / Astronomy students and they certainly knew their way around the sky. Mars & Venus I know how to spot, but they quickly pointed out Saturn before it set and then we got around to looking at some star clusters (which I have never seen before and can’t be seen with the naked eye). We then finished up by looking at the surface of the moon and taking some pictures on our phones through the eyepiece on the telescope.
Whilst, in some ways, it was disappointing that we were not treated to a black sky littered with glittering stars and with the ghostly-white trail of the Milky Way overhead, we have seen that before, and we were treated to a different experience. (I should have taken photos on that early morning in San Pedro de Atacama though!) We were able to get hands on with the telescope and our guides were able to talk about the night sky and the constellations; to find stars with ease; and to show us new things. They were even able to talk about solar physics (e.g. sun spots and coronal mass ejections) that reminded us of not being able to understand Chris’ PhD thesis! All in all, Alfa Aldea are highly recommended.