![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This was my third trip to Chile, it's starting to feel familiar now. I hadn't stayed in La Serena before, and I loved the little box-shaped houses with their elaborate grilled shutters, every one a different vibrant colour: red, orange, brown, peach, pink, yellow, green, blue, lilac. It's a pretty town to walk around, especially near sunset. In the compound, there were abundant bright flowers of every variety.
A little museum in town has one of the Rapa Nui moai. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was lonely there, and wanted to be back on Easter Island.
I went a few times to the beach, which was a longish walk out of the university part of the town. The first time I went, I managed to get lost trying to find my way home, and was worried I wouldn't make it back before the gate shut. I finally located a taxi rank with the help of some locals, and crammed into the last seat in a taxi driven by the Evil Knievel of La Serena. I made it back in one piece, though it felt like a close run thing. The beach itself was lovely sand and wide ocean, though fairly touristy.
Cerro Pachon is something else. Cerro Tololo is a few pinheads glinting silver in the sun a few miles away, but apart from that, the two telescopes separated by a knife-edge ridge stand alone in the endless mountains. I explored the dusty hills around there a little, though I stayed close to the road as I was sure I spotted cougar prints. I suppose the cougars are happy enough with the donkeys and goats that roam the rocky slopes, but I wasn't prepared to take the chance.
When it is clear, the sky is crystalline, the Milky Way spread across it like a slug trail of divine proportions. One night, I watched as the moon set over the mountains, glowing as orange as a burning coal. One of the most beautiful times is walking down the mountain in the morning. At first, the air is cool and the gentle pastel sky is full of light above the shadowy landscape, but as the pinks and yellows disperse and the sun rises above the peaks, the brightness becomes unbearable and the sky turns cobalt blue.
I came down from the telescope only the day before the earthquake.
A little museum in town has one of the Rapa Nui moai. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was lonely there, and wanted to be back on Easter Island.
I went a few times to the beach, which was a longish walk out of the university part of the town. The first time I went, I managed to get lost trying to find my way home, and was worried I wouldn't make it back before the gate shut. I finally located a taxi rank with the help of some locals, and crammed into the last seat in a taxi driven by the Evil Knievel of La Serena. I made it back in one piece, though it felt like a close run thing. The beach itself was lovely sand and wide ocean, though fairly touristy.
Cerro Pachon is something else. Cerro Tololo is a few pinheads glinting silver in the sun a few miles away, but apart from that, the two telescopes separated by a knife-edge ridge stand alone in the endless mountains. I explored the dusty hills around there a little, though I stayed close to the road as I was sure I spotted cougar prints. I suppose the cougars are happy enough with the donkeys and goats that roam the rocky slopes, but I wasn't prepared to take the chance.
When it is clear, the sky is crystalline, the Milky Way spread across it like a slug trail of divine proportions. One night, I watched as the moon set over the mountains, glowing as orange as a burning coal. One of the most beautiful times is walking down the mountain in the morning. At first, the air is cool and the gentle pastel sky is full of light above the shadowy landscape, but as the pinks and yellows disperse and the sun rises above the peaks, the brightness becomes unbearable and the sky turns cobalt blue.
I came down from the telescope only the day before the earthquake.
