Sat, Jun 29 - To La Serena

We left our nice hotel after eating a large and varied breakfast, including Cait making herself a big ham and cheese sandwich to have for lunch,  as we have been feeding her only cookies and snacks!

We didn't have much trouble leaving Copiapó and, after gassing up, found ourselves back on the Panamerican Highway heading south.  After a couple of hours we could see the apparently tiny domes of Las Campanas Observatory high on a mountain where Bob observed back in 1974, with the domes of ESO’s La Silla beyond. 

Las Campanas Observatory

About 30 miles north of La Serena we reached the coast, and Hil pulled off onto a graded dirt road that wound towards the ocean on a high bluff. 

Great to be in a Country that appreciates its Flora!

Possible Viewing Site for the Eclipse?

We stopped by a new looking porta-potty which we think may have been put there for use by an eclipse group, as it would be a great place from which to observe it if the fog doesn’t materialize.    We have heard rumors of 400,000 people coming to the area, and imagine some of  them will be looking at this very good spot almost on the center line!

We continued on into the seaside city of La Serena, which has a population of about 200,000. It appears to be quite green and pleasant.  The highway exit we wanted to take was full of a giant street market, so we used maps and Hil’s phone GPS unit to find La Sombra del Viento, our hotel, and managed to park on the street nearby. 

La Sombra's Front Door

Typical of Latin America, the street is a plain wall with doors inset, behind which could be a slum or a palace; one never knows!    We rang the bell and Marie Laure, our hotel owner, unlocked the door and let us into a lovely courtyard filled with succulents and cacti, and then back to another one with a small lawn surrounded by eight rooms all differently decorated and quite lovely!  We got three rooms this time and immediately saw Karen and Bill, our friends from grad student days at UC Santa Cruz!

After settling in, we all took a walk to the main plaza with its old beautiful architecture, and row of tents and booths dedicated to the Eclipse! 

We bought tee-shirts and gelato and walked some more before returning to La Sombra.  I took a shower in the bathroom’s space-age cubical with three types of water spray and we rested until 6:30 when all six of us set off to Donde El Guaton Restaurant that Marie Laure recommended.

Hearts of Palm and Avocado Salad

  We all started with Pisco Sours, of course.  Hilary and I split a salad of hearts of palm and avocado, and then a another casserole of Pastel de Choclo. 

Hilary and one of the Waiters

And an ice cream and meringue for dessert!    Home to bed

Fri, Jun 28 - Driving to Copiapó

Sugar Loaf National Park

We had large rolls and orange cake for breakfast and set off at 8:30 in the sunshine driving uphill due east through suburban Taltal until we met the Panamerican Highway and hit some fog.  With the sun behind we could see some fogbows (like faint rainbows) stretching above us.

Fogbow

After half an hour we turned off onto a road leading to Parque Nacional Pan de Azúcar (Sugar Loaf National Park) and descended to a beautiful wide beach with a triangular shape island off shore (the sugar loaf).  We checked in with the ranger who recommended the Mirador (viewpoint) hike and Quebrada Castillo where we could see lots of cacti.  We parked at the Mirador trail head and hiked up a very gradual trail past lots of tall multi-branched columnar cacti, while checking out quite a few birds. 

We reached the top after 1.5 miles and had great views of the coastline as the fog had moved offshore.  We tried to spot some Humboldt Penguins for Caitlin but didn’t see any.

We returned and drove on a short ways to the Quebrada hike where we started seeing lots of tennis ball-sized Copiapoa  (dealbata?) Cacti piled up into mounds, and more of the highly branched one also, that have very wooly balls (seeds?) on their branches.

We finally had to pull ourselves away and head further south, along wide, empty, very white sandy beaches interrupted by rocky headlands until we came to the messy town of Caldera and turned inland towards Copiapó, a mining business town, but with leafy parks and nice old trees. 

Bob and Hilary got us to our hotel area, but we couldn’t find the hotel, Hotel La Casona, “an airy, charming old hotel”, according to Lonely Planet, and with whom I had made reservations many months ago.  Bob and I finally walked around the area of the address: O’Higgins 150...but there was no such address.  We queried some workmen and it turns out that some time ago, the hotel was sold and is now a restaurant!   So what to do??    We looked in our guide books and saw the Atacama Suites Hotel nearby which sounded OK and we drove over.  It is a 15-story fairly new business hotel.  We found they had rooms and we could park in their underground garage, after we finally stopped some traffic so Hil could back up to enter it.

We got large quite nice modern rooms for a very reasonable price - so we lucked out!  We met for dinner at 6:30 and had Pisco Sours, tuna, chicken, pasta, wine and panqueque (crepes) with apricot ice cream!

Thu, Jun 27 - Driving to Taltal

We said good by to Carla, our lovely cook and cleaner, and to Katia, the manager, and sadly left the wonderful Planeta Atacama for the long drive south to the seaside town of Taltal.  We started off at 8:50 driving back on Chile Rt 23 with plenty of truck traffic towards Calama which we bypassed and started on Chile Rt 25 behind a large truck.  At one point he pulled over to the side and police with lights flashing came by chaperoning three massive land movers heading towards some mining operation.

Our highway merged with the 4-lane Panamerican Highway which heads southwest towards Antofagasta where it all began.  We pulled into a gas station to visit the bathrooms and buy ice cream and Bob was thrilled to find the Chilean Copec multi-volume travel guide, the  equivalent of a Michelin guide, to replace the one he bought 14 years ago.

We turned off the Panamericana south of Antofagasta and continued on through the extremely barren landscape, passing the entrance to the European Southern Observatory’s  Very Large Telescope unit on Cerro  Paranal. 

Finally we descended from 6000’ into the coastal fog and suddenly started seeing a wonderful variety of cacti. 

Fog Pouring over the Hillside

There was no place to turn off and the visibility was very poor, so we didn’t stop, but hope to spend more time with cacti tomorrow.  

We reached the coastal plain at Paposo and passed by rugged volcanic rocks and surf, and some wide beaches. 

Some wildflowers were even in bloom,  After about 30 miles we reached Taltal, a small fishing town with an obvious summer tourist beach scene.  We found Mi Tampi, our hotel, a block from the beach and checked into our tidy but small rooms at 3:20.

As we had been driving for six hours, we decided to walk around town, which was very quiet with few people around, and found the carefully manicured central plaza and church. 

We walked along the beach walkway, painted in orange and yellow, and found a small place selling empanadas and ordered several which were delicious!  

Cait getting some exercise!

We continued on to the fishing piers.  A fisherman came along and started hitting the metal railing with a bottle and several South American sea lions suddenly appeared.

 

South American Sea Lion

The man threw fish heads at them and they wallowed and barked and attracted a lot of gulls to what must be a daily feast!

We returned to Mi Tampi and inquired as to when restaurants open and were told 8:30 PM!  Way too late for us!  The motel has a refrigerator with beer and wine for sale and our nice manager said we could get some take-out and come back and use the breakfast room, so we decided to do that.  At 6 we walked out to the corner empanada shop....which said they only had cold sandwiches...Sigh.   We walked back to the plaza, finding all the shops that had been closed at 4 PM were now open and everyone was bustling about!   A nice coffee shop was open and amazingly they had fish, beef and chicken empanadas which they would heat up for us to take away.  We returned to our motel, settled into the breakfast room with a bottle of wine and ate a very nice supper!  The manager came by with some orange cake for us that he had baked!

Wed, Jun 26 - In Search of the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover

We have been looking for the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, one of the hardest birds to find in the world.  It inhabits high-elevation bogs, and we certainly have been driving by the proper habitat for days.  Bob’s research says that for reasons ornithologists have not yet determined, the Sandpiper-Plovers prefer certain bogs over others, and we haven’t searched the correct ones as yet.  E-bird said that they might be on the highway going towards Argentina.

We set off after breakfast this time due east.   Hilary drove us onto Chile Route 27, a good two lane highway that heads straight up into the mountains.  We passed several heavily-loaded car transport trucks.

  A large shipment must have arrived in Antofagasta from Toyota and they were being hauled over the Andes into Argentina.  There was no traffic coming west so it was no problem passing them.  

At 14,000’ we arrived at a pass, with a fine view of Bolivia, with an official-looking building labeled “Chile. - Aduana” (customs ) on the side road to Bolivia.  And then the road was blocked with orange cones which Hilary whipped around without hesitation leaving all the trucks parked at the side of the road. 

We continued on the empty road through high snow-streaked gravel fans.  There was no sign of life, animal or vegetable, and the snow was building up and blowing across the highway.  

After reaching our all-time record elevation of 15,800’ it seemed impossible that the birds would still be occupying the frozen wastes with the temperature reaching 23⁰ F and an enormous wind chill (despite the sunny blue skies.)  But we persisted onward and suddenly reached an area of frozen grass and ponds with some small areas of open water.  And then in a small pond right by the edge of the highway were a pair of adult Sandpiper-Plovers and one juvenile!! 

We sat there for 15 minutes and watched them and some Crested Ducks and Speckled Teals splashing and swimming around quite happily!!  Amazing!

We thought it prudent to turn back as none of the trucks had yet driven by and carefully drove back to the pass.  By then there was a very long line of large trucks parked by the side of the road (waiting to be caravanned through?) 

We whisked past the Chile Aduana building and drove down almost all the way until we came to a big jam of cars and trucks in both directions at a metal barricade.  We waited a bit and the barricade was removed by the Chilean carabineros.  Somehow we had slipped through before they closed the highway in San Pedro and bagged our birds and were home before noon!

Hilary & Caitlin by the San Pedro Church

Caitlin, Hilary and I drove into town and walked over to the central plaza to see the beautiful church that has been there since the 1500s, although rebuilt over the years.  We then shopped for family and returned to the hotel.  

Girls just Gotta Get Ice Cream!

We all wanted to take a walk and decided to drive over to the Valley of the Moon, a major geological attraction of the area.  I went in to pay our fees, and eventually figured out with my poor Spanish that they were closed ...open from 8 AM to 1 PM - except that their major feature according to the guidebooks is observing sunset from the area.  That didn’t make sense. But whatever...

We drove around and couldn’t find anywhere to walk.  There had been a flood after several days of rain last February and the San Pedro River where Katia suggested we walk, was very confusing and bulldozed in places.  Instead we searched and found a very obscure bookstore, way off the beaten track called La Libreria del Desierto and shopped there a bit before returning to the El Valle del Luna, where Bob went in and found that they are closing in the afternoon as there are too many people who want to visit - well, that made some sense, except then two buses arrived, the driver flashed some paperwork at the guards, and they whisked through!!!

Well, this didn’t make Bob very happy as you can imagine.  We eventually returned to our hotel and luckily Juan, the owner, was there and he led us through the fields out back, by a 500-year old algarrobo tree, to an area where two Burrowing Owls are nesting and we got good views.

  
Hil and I walked down the road a bit and met a flock of sheep which pushed us out of the way.  A lady followed with a burro carrying a tiny bleating lamb wrapped in a colorful blanket!

We all went back down town at 5:30, showed Bob the church and central plaza and walked to Adobe, a pleasant restaurant, open air (brrr!) with a roaring fire and picnic tables- a strange combination in this cold air, but we had a good dinner and listened to El Condor Pasa from a local band.

Llama from next door