Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Chile: San Pedro - desert and the star

Cycling in desert is not as easy as I thought.

Bumpy road, strong sunlight. Plus we are 2000+ meters above sea level. Anyway, did manage to reach an old city near San Pedro. It was built before the Incas and Spaniards. Feel like castle along hillside. It stands many wars until Columbus came to south America.
An unexpected sort of this trip is this one. Guess what?
Saturn. Joined an astronomy tour. Desert is one of the perfect locations for watching stars, given its low humidity and clear sky most of the time. On the site, it was first completely dark when light was turned off. Then, stars glowed! It was the first time of my life to see milky way with my bared eyes. Explanation on locating stars, constellation and history on astronomy was interesting too. We also watched various stars of different colors, formation of stars with telescope...

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