Rundown: Surprise birthday trip to the Pisco capital of Chile!
Our first weekend into the school year and we're already off to parts unknown! Miranda whisked me away to a secret destination, which became apparent only after we had driven a couple hours north, then hooked east into the mountains.
Valle Elke is a sleepy valley town with steep, stark mountain walls rising in close proximity. In spring, they are wallpapered with deep green grape vines for production of Pisco. Chile's national firewater is often mixed with limon de pica, sugar, and egg white and blended into Pisco Sours.
One of our first stops in Valle Elke was the Mistral Pisco distillery. We learned about the process of making and aging Pisco, while walking through great rooms full of barrels as oak and fermented grape wafted through.
Had several tastings too! Definitely different flavors between the liquors. Smoother finished in the longer aged Piscos. Not sure I could be a proper connoisseur, but it was fun to pretend.
Stayed at a cute little place with orange trees and blooming flowers. Even just a few hours north, the landscape is distinctly more desert like.
Miranda had presents for me as well! It takes a lot of forethought into getting presents down here.
The next evening we drove an hour over to the next canyan out to take advantage of the dry, clear air to check out the night sky at the observatory Mamalluca!
Wound our way up the dirt roads to the observatory around dusk. The stars started popping on, one by one, and the sky went cerulean to black. There were a dozen other people up there with us, so when they said there was a separate tour in English, we shamelessly pounced on it.
We would have been fine on the Spanish tour with everyone else, but we were the only ones on the English tour, so we had full reign of the telescope! Fortune smiles! Our guide showed us nebulae, gas clouds, Venus...
My favorite was Saturn though! The shot below is with my camera through the telescope with manual focus in the dark. Not a great shot. But looking through the telescope the individual rings and even the swirly colored body could be seen. I've seen pictures of Saturn from the Voyager space probe, but assumed that you couldn't see the planet with such clarity and detail from Earth.
Overall, an impressive, humbling experience. Makes one feel very small, but not all together insignificant. Fraser Cain of Astronomy Cast said something to the effect of this: We fill an interesting niche. If we were more omniscient beings and knew all there was to know about the universe, things would be pretty boring for us. On the other hand, if we were less cognizant of our existence in the universe, say, lobsters, we wouldn't be able to ask any of these interesting questions. We live in such an interesting place and time. We fill such an interesting niche.
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