Photo Diary: La Serena, Elqui Valley, Infinity and Beyond!

 

Mamalluca Space Observatory is home to the Meade LX200 ACF, an 8.5cm lens space telescope which afforded splendid views of Jupiter (you could see the cloud rings), moon craters and distant galaxies.  Absolutely marvellous.

Shamefully I cannot recall the model of this particular telescope, but it was not housed in an observatory, and while less powerful than the above Meade, gave us tremendous views of Orion and the whole moon.

 

Pisco, Elqui Valley.

Our fine Pisco bodega, sunning itself in a miserly 36° C

The inimitable Valle Del Elqui - The black dots you see on the mountains are thousands of cacti…

 

… like these beauties, (which coincidently we mixed with mud and cow-turd to make mud walls whilst working on the farms, as when cut and stored in water the cactus morphs and functions as a natural gum)

(See above and below) Emma and I trade sunlight shots

 

 

These were damn fine pisco sours… it is our mission to find out if the Gin Distillery has them on the cocktail menu…

Bougainvilleas climb joyfully over every dusty wall and trellis.

The pisco grape: as we left Pisco on the collectivo, the driver pulled over, yanked off a few choice bunches and doled them out charitably to the passengers.  I just couldn’t imagine the driver of the 26 from Saltash Road, Plymouth to the city centre, doing the same with our wonderful autumnal blackberries (wistful sigh)