An Observatory & Some Observations

I feel like I’m riding on some alien planet – Mars, or maybe Luke Skywalker’s home of Tatooine. The landscape is barren to the dusty horizon. The Atacama is the second driest desert on earth after the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. (OK, technically the Dry Valleys qualify as deserts, but shouldn’t a desert be hot at least some of the time?)

The otherworldly setting is appropriate since I’m on my way to THE premiere astronomical research facility in the world – The European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal. ESO Paranal is home to several telescopes, but chief among them is the VLT or Very Large Telescope (astronomers are very smart people, but not the most creative when it comes to names).

The VLT itself is composed of 9 individual telescope, four with huge 8.2 meter diameter mirrors and five with 1.8 meter mirrors. The telescopes can be used separately or combined together to function as one enormous light bucket. Because essentially that’s what a telescope is, an big bucket to collect way more light than we can with our little human eyes. With it’s high tech cameras and other instruments the VLT can see things tens of billions of times fainter than the unaided eye, and resolve details so small, it would like being able to see a quarter on the surface of the moon. For those of you who are interested I’ll write more in a separate post on Astronomy in Chile and Paranal. You can also visit the ESO website.

I love astronomy – for the science, for it’s innate beauty, and for the questions it asks of us about our place in the cosmos. I was lucky enough to work at the McLaughlin Planetarium for 14 years before becoming a firefighter.

Being at Paranal was a true highlight of trip so far, right up there with Machu Picchu. And that got me thinking about the parallels between the two. Both Machu Picchu and the VLT on Cerro Paranal were built with the best state-of-the-art technology of their respective cultures. Both were constructed to give the best possible views of astronomical phenomena. (Similar to Stonehenge, Machu Picchu’s various structures are precisely aligned with various rising and setting points of the Sun, Moon and stars). They are both dedicated to explaining our place in the grand scheme of things, albeit in two different contexts.

I don’t want to overdo it. They are apples and oranges, but they are both still fruit, if you get my drift. They are connected by a common chord – the human need to understand and contextualize who, what and where we are.

I love it when there’s a connection between things that are so seemingly unrelated.

From heavens to the mundane – as I was leaving Paranal, I started coughing up green stuff. I’d had the sniffles for a few days, and as usual it moved to my chest. I’m prone to respiratory infections, so i knew what it was and what I needed to do. I pulled into the next town, Taltal, where we had stayed previously. The local hospital was the only healthcare facility available, so I walked into the Emergency Dept.

The good news is it took just over an hour to sign in, see the doctor, get a fist full of antibiotics and other meds, and walk out. Amazing! And even more amazing, it only cost me the equivalent of $25, meds included!!

It’s only one experience, but I’d say there’s something very right about the way the Chilean health care system works. The hospital wasn’t fancy. There was no soaring atrium, potted palms, or chrome & glass furniture, but the equipment was as modern as anything at home, it was clean and the staff were consummately caring and professional with a pencil-necked gringo who speaks really bad Spanish. Fortunately, the doctor spoke passable English.

And one thing she told me was I had Covid. That was a surprise. I’d done a couple of rapid tests and they’d come back negative. Oh well, it seems the Fates had decreed that I was to spend more time in Taltal. That’s OK, I had a nice view of the beach and a palm tree outside my hotel window.

But it did kind of put a hitch in our new plan, which was for Liz to fly to our next destination and me to ride to meet her. I had just started a 4 day/2,600 km marathon from Antofagasta to Puerto Montt. (Similar to driving from Ottawa to Regina) I had to call Liz and tell I’d be held up a couple of days.

The doctor wanted me to stay for 5 days. We compromised and I promised to stay until the antibiotics kicked the snot out of me, literally, which is a good thing. And until the aches, which she attributed to the Covid was gone. I promised to mask up, isolate and live on take-out empanadas until the 5 days were up.

I don’t think I’m going to give Covid to anyone doing 110 kph down Ruta 5.