Enjoying La Serena

We finally hit the beach again, the Pacific ocean, in La Serena. We left on a night bus from Santiago and arrived at 6:00AM. We had a morning nap (night buses are efficient, but the sleep isn’t always satisfying), wondered around this beach town, walked along their miles of white sandy beach and booked a star gazing tour at Observatorio Comunal Cerro Mamalluca, about 2 hours away. We are a little sceptical of tours, but this area of Chile is the best place to observe stars in the world, so we took the chance and jumped on the toursit bus around 7:00. At 8:30 and in the dark, we arrived at a small building holding a large telescope. We joined the English tour and learned an emense amount about the sky, specifically the southern hemisphere and the planets. We saw the moon through the telecscope, mars, satarn, clusters of stars that the naked eye sees as one star, the milky way, a galaxy, all companied by interesting facts and stories from our guide, who was extremely passionate about the night sky. We found out about a great website (http://www.starrynight.com/) that allows you to observe the stars and planets at different times of the year and in different locations. We spent the next day on the beach, and sipped wine (another specialty of Chile). Neadless to say, we enjoyed La Serena.