04.26 I woke up and the bed and house was vibrating – my first ever earthquake. I must admit it took some minutes to fall asleep again, but well not a virgin on this anymore. And to add to it, the day after in a cabaña 500km north of Santiago I was again awaken but this deep rumble. And believe it or not – this happens mostly everyday here.
First full day I followed the northern route via Ruta del Mar and then crossed into the pre-hills of the Andes targetting the Ruta de las Estrellas – looking for the stars. Getting away from the coastline of course increased the temperature – highest reading was 36C but very dry hence not to much sweating. Roads are very comfortable outside of the cities – inside you have to look for small potholes and cracks and so many harsh speed bumps – so being a little tail heavy with the bike, I needed to take them slowly.
The sight of the mountains are so different that what I have seen elsewhere – new colors and formations, vegatation much more sparse and then everything sticks and is so dry.
It was my intention to find a camping spot – but when the time came to find a spot the only options I could find was very remote or closed – so my new friend Booking.com came to a rescue and I found a vacant cabaña north of Ovallo and had a fantastic sleep – the heat did its thing to my body anyway.
Waking up to the small quake, I got a very nice breakfast – the cabaña place was actually more a B&B. Plan for this day was to get fuel and some minor shopping, so drove back to Ovallo and for the first time parked the bike outside a Lider supermarket – and no one touched it, phew …
Found the D-595 towards northeast into the Estrellas – spots for star watching and so many small homegrown observatories. Conditions here are very good due to low polution, artificial light and dry air. Found my next B&B – Hacienta Las Andes (highly recommended if you are in the neibourghood) – and did a long hike in the afternoon before diving into the skadede hammoch for an hour. Being the only guest on a sunday (they are normally closed) I got to talk to Patricia that owns and run the place – and she arranged for a guided tour to the local observatories from 2200-2400.
Elke from Germany was the guide – she’s an amateur astronomer but are today working full time in Chile as an astronomer teacher and guide. She was so knowledgable that it amazes me that one can pursue the hobby to that level. We spent two hours at the local observatory and I got to the rings of Saturn, the moons incl the shadow of Europa for Jupiter so clear that I almost did not believe it. Unfortunately I could not get an image to the iPhone – but tried to capture the sky (its of course upside down) with Orion in the center – a new app to the phone allowed to auto-stack many frames to enhance the image while not getting startrails.
