watching planets and stars in the desert of "La Serena"

Hallo,

in the last days we have travelled from Valparaíso to Santiago de Chile to Rancagua, to La Serena. Near La Serena, which is a bit up north from Santiago there is an area which seems to be the perfect place for an astronomical observatory (as there they have build four observatories here): nearly no rainfall, nearly no clouds (according to the scientists of the observatory 300 days per year a perfect clear sky during the night), and only few people and cities emitting light. We took the oportunity to visist two observatories: one during the night, where we could observe the night sky ourselves through the telescopes (we could see far away star constellation which one cannot see with the eye alone, the moon, Jupiter and Saturn with it´s rings and plantes around... all was PERFECTLY CLEAR and so near.... like viewing a picture! Great!) and one observatory from an american university which has gigantic telescopes.. unfortunately we could not see through these enormous telescopes (which can show stars which are outside of our galaxy!!!!..cool!) ourselves as they are constantly used every night for (real :-) ) scientific research. But it was impressive to see the tools and hear something about their daily work!
That was our highlight of our last days....

Beside that we saw some pinguins, dolphins, sea lions, deserts, mountains, valleys, the sea, a lot of cactuses, cities, autobuses from within, pisco plants (pisco is the national beverage here..it´s alcohol made out of grapes..a bit like Grappa but much sweeter - see link!)...so we are not getting bored :-)

View our new photos if you like: Uspallata & Valparaiso !

Kisses Renate & Mirko

Crossing the Andes into Chile

Hallo all of you!

We are in Chile now! Exactly in Valparaiso at the coast near Santiago de Chile.

We crossed the border to Chile via a pass in the andes. The frontier lies in an altitude of about 3.900m, more or less exactly in the middle of the andes. before crossing the border we spent a few more days on the argentinian side, in "Uspallata" -> which we ourselves pronounced like:"Uspajata" but the argentinians pronounce like: "schpaschata"... a fact which became especially interesting at the moment we wanted to buy the bustickets, asked whether this bus in front of us would be the right bus to take, or if we are already there or not, if we should get off the bus here :-) .... but it was worth the effort!

The valley is really wonderful! In the background there were the andes, with a bit of snow on it´s mountain tops and in the foreground the green valley with trees covered with yellow leaves (here it´s already autumn) ... and a perfectly blue sky. The air was rather cold but with the sun it was agreable. One day we did a trip to a viewpoint exactly at the border between Chile and Argentinia (altitude: 4.100m) with an incredible view both into vallys in chile and argentinia. And another day we did a "horse riding excursion" through the incredible scenery of the valley.
Two perfect days, really. :-)

We send you best regards, hope you are all well!
Renate & Mirko

Salta to Mendoza

Hallo,
in the last few days we have first travelled from Salta to San Augustin, where we vistied two National parks: NP Ischigualasti and NP Talampaya. Both of them were very impressive.
National park Ischigualasti is also called "Valle de la luna" (Tal des Mondes) and that is exactly what it looks like: like the images you have of what the moon probably looks like. Within the "Valle de la Luna" they have and are still discovering many fossils of dinosaurs.
The second park was more or less a small valley in between of two very high, nearly vertical walls of red stone on your right and left side of 100 - 140 meters! Cool!
Both national parks are "deserts" from the meteorological point of view and we can wholeheartedly agree considering the heat.

After that we continued our way to Mendoza where were are at the moment. The weather is fine, although autumn has already started, and we wander around the pedestrian zones and drink coffee in the streets thinking about our next steps.
At the moment we are a bit at a loss how to continue. At the end of april we need to be in Santiago de Chile as our flight to the Easter Islands leaves on the 1.5. So we have about 2 weeks time to spend in between ...yes, there is a lot to do... but WHICH of the possibilities shall we choose .... I know we have a hard life here with extremely hard decisions to take ... ;-)
[Only today I said to Mirko: "Hey! Today is monday and we don´t have to sit in the office ...hehe ... We know you love us nonetheless :-) ]

Thinking of all of you! De verdad!
Kisses Renate & Mirko

Salta and surroundings

Hallo,
we spent the last days in Salta and travelling through the surrounding area. When I say "surrounding" I really mean about 300 km up north and 200 km down south ... the landscape are is so vast, it´s unbelievable. We travelled through incredible wide and beautiful landscapes, valleys and mountains and came through "villages" with 1 house (maybe 4 souls :-) ) to the regional capital of 5000 souls (about 100 houses?) ... but most of them were about 4-10 houses.. and in between were km of km with NOTHING but LANDSCAPE! .. beautiful, impressive, astounding, incredible LANDSCAPE ...
these last 6 days costed me about 6 film-rolls.... and Mirko about 300MB of memory card ... but one could not resist the temptation!! every 5 minutes we stopped the car to "stare in wonder" .. and to take pictures!
The landscape was formed mostly by gigantic stone formations of every kind, colour and texture ... but then again we came through green valleys just to reach again sandy, stony grounds dotted by a few bushes ..
and everything was sooooooo vast and sooooo empty ... as far as the eye could reach .... !!!!
I have never before seen so much land and so few people and life .... !!
We were very, very impressed and enjoyed these days very much!

Unfortunately, we, again, are not able to provide you with pictures at the moment ... as much as we would want to share a few with you, really ... missing USB-connection on the local PCs.... :-(
We hope to be able to show you again some pictures soon... maybe in the next big city...

We send you best regards ! Hope you are fine and guess you can enjoy spring in germany/Austria as well!

Renate & Mirko

Puerto Iguazu - waterfalls

Hallo,

After having spent 2 days in Rosario - which were not so good because it was raining again all the time - we travelled north to Puerto Iguazu to take a look at the famous waterfalls. We had to make another night-ride by bus to reach puerto iguazu at the very north of argentinia right at the border to brasilia. The falls are situated exactly at the border (the river is in fact the borderline).
We were lucky and had two days without rain to visit the waterfalls! JIPIIIEH! And the falls were very impressive!! Although we got wet again, but this time by the water from the falls :-) which we welcomed because it had about 40 degrees..
We visited both the argentinian and the brasilian side and I was very impressed (Mirko has seen all of that before but liked it nonetheless)!

The next day it was raining again and a good time to leave...so we took the bus to san ignacio to posada to resistencia to roque sunaz to salta (we really had to change the bus thus often .. uff!) and it took us two days and one night in the bus to get there ...uff! uff! (and they showed "Ghost rider" as a video on the bus.. anybody who know what THAT means ? check the program of the cinema for more information ;-) )

Now we are in Salta, which we like because it has a nice athmosphere and bulidings colonial style. From here we want to explore the area around Salta with its spectacular landscapes and small, beautiful villages - so they say - by bus and by car during the next week.
We will check whether this is true... hear you again next week!

Kisses and regars, Renate & Mirko

P.S: We know you are longing for pictures, no? But technical problems prevent us from providing them for you.. at the moment ... we are working on it. Sorry for the inconveniences ;-)