Fray Jorge Adventure

David and I had heard about a fantastic little national part on the coast of Chile, just an hour or so South of La Serena called Fray Jorge. Supposedly, the fog and mist coming up off the sea create the perfect environment for decidious trees. The hum-dinger of this is that the majority of the park is desert. So, the park is a beautiful, vast, scrub filled desert kissed at its heights by a wet, green forest. It sounded wonderful.

After not much though, we decided to make the trip and our new neighbors Allison and Ryan wanted to come along. Ryan is a freshly minted new Ph.D. just like me and works at the other observatory on the Recinto, CTIO. He is leading the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program which pairs 10 or so students from the US with mentors here in Chile for a summer program. He is also a research postdoc, in the copious time left over from keeping 19 year old students from killing themselves (just kidding - hey I was an REU kid once!) Allison just finished her MS in astronomy and works at Gemini. They live in Casa 17, which is the house we thought we might get originally when we moved up here. In the end, it's all worked out - as we've found our new home Casa 10 suits us just fine.

Anyway, Allison and Ryan wanted to bring two other friends along - Matt Klimek a former REU student who was working here before venturing to grad school, and Beaux, their dog. Beaux is just a tiny little golden retriever puppy with lots of energy. We weren't sure how to feel with a packed car plus a dog venturing out to the middle of nowhere, but we decided - what the heck! We're in Chile! Let's be adventurous!

So we drove out to the park, which at first was an easy trip on a well-paved highway. However, when we turned off the highway we found ourselves on a dirt road. It was well maitained to be sure, but we knew we were far off the beaten trail.

We road the 1.5 hours into the park and up to the decidiuos forest. It really was a fantastic sight! The trail is a quite short, but the views to the ocean are fantastic and watching the mist move off of the coast is pretty cool.



Beaux got us quite a lot of attention at all the overlooks too, so it was pretty fun to have him along, except for the brief moment toward the top when he threw up on Allison.

Allison with Beaux

David, Me, Matt, Ryan, Allison and Beaux

Everything was peachy until we'd done all of our exploring and decided to leave the park. We got out of the main entrance and had about 10 km or so to go on the dirt road when the car suddenly started to struggle going up a few hills. We thought maybe, just maybe, we had too much weight in the car for all the uphills climbs, so Ryan and I got out and the car zoomed up without a problem. I was quite relieved until the next turn when the car stopped dead.

Fortunately for us we'd broken down right near a farm house. They suggested that we climb up the nearest hill and try our cell phone there and miraculously that worked! We managed to call the guards on the Recinto for help and they offered to send someone to get us and the car.

So with a few hours to wait we decided to buy some snacks off the local farmstead. They had a sign and a tiny shack set up for tourists to buy cookies and juice. The woman on the farm, Juana, offered their outdoor table as a place to eat and rest while we had our nice little snack. We got to talking (or at least Allison and Matt did, they are fantastically fluent) and her husband, Pablo, came over. They told us all about their families and children and grandchildren. Soon we were playing with their dog, Penguino and admiring her cactii and hens; the next thing we knew, we were invited (despite our protests) to join them in "onces" (a midday meal, not unlike afternoon tea). We had FRESH goat cheese from her goats, beautiful homemade bread, and tea. It was fantastic.

Afterwards we noticed it was getting very late. They obviously had chores to do around the house, so we thanked them for everything and said our goodbyes, planning to wait for whatever AURA sent to bring us home near the car. A bit later, much to our surprise, a large flatbed rolled up and loads the car. We didn't know what to do, as it was obvious that we couldn't all fit in the cab. The driver motioned for us to get into our car. So we did. And we road the 60+ minutes home, in the car, on the back of a flat bed. I think the guards at the gate probably died laughing to watch all the gringos return home under less than their own power.

Did I mention Chile is the land of adventures?

Home Sweet Home

I returned to La Serena from my first observing run - not to the trusty apart-hotel Gran Pacifico, but to our new home! David and I managed to get ourselves off the bloody waiting list and into one of the houses on the Recinto!

As I mentioned before, the Recinto is a small community that is home to two of the large observatories in La Serena; Gemini and Cerro Tololo. The two main observatory buildings sit right next to each other, with a spattering of about 30 houses around them on a giant hill that overlooks the ocean. Most of these houses were built in the 70s, but they are still quite charming and have great yards. Better yet, they have American power, meaning we can run all of our kitchen appliances, lamps, etc. with no problems. We've been hoping to be able to rent one of the houses, but originally the prospects looked bleak. However our luck has seriously turned.

When we first saw our house, Casa 10, we were quite frankly, not in love. I don't know what I thought was worse: the terra cotta floors in the stark white kitchen, the peeling panda bear wallpaper in the kids bedroom, the red and brown plaid curtains covering every window of the house, or the cracking creme paint. Originally, we wanted another house, Casa 17, but our new friends and soon-to-be cooking buddies, Allison and Ryan, were ahead of us on the list and snatched it up immediately (not that I could blame them). So David and I thought we would settle for Casa 10 for a few months to get us out of the Gran Pacifico (which has started to develop a bad case of mold) and then move when another house became available. We'd heard, in fact, that two houses would be ready in December: Casa 4 (a permanent favorite of mine with a beautiful sea view) and Casa 28 (one of the newer houses built in the 90s).

However, when I came home from my observing run and saw the house a bit cleaned up, with some of the more hideous atrocities (like the plaid curtains) gone, it grew on me a bit. The kitchen, with a little hardware upgrade, could probably look fairly modern despite the 80s whte. But despite its flaws, it is simply huge compared to the kitchens in the other houses. Painted white, the main rooms will be very spacious. I can see potential in the guest bedrooms once the wallpaper is removed. And the house has two full bathrooms, including a huge master bath and "hardwood" floors (lamenate really; still better than carpeting)

We'd originally ask the Recinto management not to touch a thing, since we wanted to move in right away and planned to move out as soon as possible. So after chatting, yesterday we went with hat in hand and told them we'd changed our mind. We wanted to stay in Casa 10. Now all the painting and repair work will have to be done with us living in the house. This would be a pain, but without our stuff here - it's really not that much of a bother.

And at the end of the day, I'm just glad to be HOME!

Casa 10 - not much to look at..yet

First Observing Run on Pachon

This week I had my first training run at the telescope. It was a really exciting experience, but before I go into the details, I just wanted to describe a bit about the observatory.

Gemini South is one of the world's largest telescopes, with a single 8 meter (~ 26 ft) wide mirror. As it's name implies, it is a "twin"; an identical telescope (named unsurprisingly Gemini North) is located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Meanwhile, Gemini South is located on Cerro Pachon, just a few peaks over from Cerro Tololo, where I did the bulk of my thesis observing. Pachon is about a two hour drive from the La Serena headquarters, which is quite a nice change. In the recent past, when I went observing, it generally required several days of travel, in planes, trains, and automobiles just to get to the telescope. Now, I hop in a caravan that drives us up to the observatory at 4:20pm and a few hours later I'm observing.

Gemini is not operated like any observatory I've ever visited before. Most observatories run in classical mode, which means that an observer applies for time to use the telescope, is judged on the quality of his/her proposal by a Telescope Allocation Committees, and if awarded time, flies to wherever the telescope "lives" to take their data.

At Gemini, after time is awarded to the astronomer, his/her program is placed in a massive database or "queue" with all the other winning programs. It is then observed sometime in the next six months by trained Ph.D. astronomers that work for Gemini. There are lots of reasons for this different system, not the least being that people get exactly the weather conditions that they ask for. With classical observing, an observer might come all the way to Chile only to be clouded or snowed out (and this has happened to me). With queue observing, unless an observer has a program that can handle some light clouds, their observations are only taken under clear skies. There are many other reasons for queue observing, but this is a large advantage.

As a Fellow, I will probably observe about 25 - 35 nights a year as a "queue" observer. My job is take make the observations for my colleagues in the Gemini science community who have programs in the queue. I will be trained as an expert on all the "cameras" at the observatory (we currently have 4 in operation that, but another 2 about to be completed). With one camera, I can image a distant galaxy or find out what is inside the remants of a dying star. With a different one I can look for the conditions that form planets around nearby stars. With the third I can investigate the regions where stars are born. The data are not mine, of course, unless I happen to have a project that is deemed worthy enough to observe with Gemini myself. Most Fellows do; they are so familiar with the telescope after a few years, they know exactly what it is capable of.

Anyway, this was my first time observing on Gemini. I was up purely for training with my officemate Etienne and only for two night. I wasn't particularly nervous, as I knew that I was just learning the very basics. Still I was excited for my first night on an 8-m class telescope.

I arrived at the dormitory and was surprised at how nice it was. Every place has its problems, but this was fairly nice for the middle of nowhere. The bed was soft and the bathrooms fairly modern. I was pretty happy about the accomodations.



After a relaxed dinner (summertime affords us quite a bit of time), I went up to the telescope with Etienne and Erich. Erich is an SSA, Gemini's version of a telescope operator. While the astronomers operate the cameras that take the images and evaluate all the data, the SSA is moving and monitoring the telescope. All our observations are taken as a two person team - and, in fact, no one is ever left alone on the summit.

Erich was very excited to have a reason to "show off". He moved the telescope and dome around a bit and I felt like I got quite a show. I took some amazing pictures.

The 8-m Gemini South Telescope on Cerro Pachon

The wind gates, open to let the dome come up to temperature

Erich and I with the telescope

The night was a fairly short summer one, but still frantic. For as experienced as an observer as I am (well over 50 nights at small telescopes and another 30+ at 4-m and up) I was pretty amazed at how different queue observing could be. I learned a great deal and I can't wait to go back up for my next trip.

The blooming desert on the way back to La Serena

My New Office

This week, my second at Gemini, I moved out of my temporary space into my permanent office. My desk isn't quite ready (there is still quite a bit of musical chairs going on) but I settled into another empty spot in the office, just to get the feel for it. The picture above is actually a view from my office; I would say that looking out over the Pacific Ocean is a fairly large upgrade from staring at the back end of a football stadium.

I also got to meet and chat with my new office mate, Etienne. Etienne found out that I was interested in nature photography and very enthusiastically showed me his extensive birding site. His photos are pretty remarkable; I'm fairly sure he could have a career as a nature photographer if he wanted. Instead he studies brown dwarfs, objects that are just a bit larger than Jupiter-like planets and just a bit smaller than the smallest stars. (He's very good at that too!) He also works on NICI, a special new instrument at Gemini that will find planets around stars other than our sun. Besides the bird pictures, he's also got quite a bit of photography of his baby daughter, Heloise, and his wife Myriam.

Almost immediately after settling into my office, I found out that I would be going up for my first solo run at the telescope at the beginning of December. Since I know absolutely nothing about the instruments, the telescope, etc. I decided that I needed to schedule my first training run as soon as possible. Fortunately, Etienne is observing next week and he's agreed to show me the ropes. So I'm already planning my first nighttime trip to the mountain!

Of course, I've met many new people besides Etienne; at Gemini there are plenty of opportunities to socialize. Every Wednesdays, the science staff gets together for "Science Coffee" and chats (over coffee and cookies, of course!) about interesting science results that we've seen or (hopefully) produced. Gemini also has a monthly meeting to celebrate all the birthdays that took place during the month. The "Birthday Celebration" is followed by a nice spread of food including sushi, cake, empanadas, etc. It's clear that they work very hard on a very positive morale here and go out of their way to make sure everyone knows each other and feels important to the observatory.

So far I'm really enjoying my time here. It will be interesting to see what next week brings!

First Days at Gemini

On September 22nd, two weeks after we arrived in Chile, I started my first day of work. Beginning in a new place is always a crazy experience, but after spending seven years at Florida and knowing everything about everyone, it was particularly odd to not know where I was going, what I was doing, or who I was meeting. I haven’t had that sensation in a while.

At first, I didn’t have much of an office. Gemini is in the midst of some renovation, so I found myself in a temporarily space. I didn’t stay in my seat for long though - I had so many meetings to go to on my first day that I barely even saw “my” desk, so it was no big loss. Still, someone had very thoughtfully laid out notepads, pens, and various other office supplies for me. I even had a phone programmed with my name and voicemail. After sharing an office (and a phone) with at least five other graduate students for seven years, this was quite a change.

The Gemini Headquarters in La Serena

My overall first impression was that Gemini Observatory is really well-organized - and I realized very quickly that it needed to be. For the uninitiated, Gemini South is one of the world’s largest telescopes - in fact it is the 8th largest. Every second of nighttime operations is worth $1. In other words, losing one night due to mechanical failures, disorganization, or poor communication costs at least $30,000.

Given this price tag, Gemini has a responsibility to make sure observations at night go as smoothly as possible. This translates into a giant complex of engineers, astronomers, and staff making sure that things are where they need to be, when they need to be there. It also means a more business-like approach and a LOT of meetings! Still people manage to have fun at work and the observatory is willing to spend the money to make sure that everyone has the tools needed to do a good job. In fact, Bernadette, who is the head of science, told me to order myself a new laptop!

Besides that, I was also scheduled for a driver’s training course. Not only would I get to drive around dirt roads with a professional driver, I was going to take my first trip since my interview out to Cerro Pachon, the mountain that is home to Gemini South. Given the efficiency at Gemini, it was unsurprising that my training had already been scheduled...for Wednesday! I was really excited because I’d heard that Danielle, the professional driver was a lot of fun. I also found out that the entire desert was in bloom, a rare event, and that the mountains on the way to Pachon were covered in flowers. I anticipated a really great day driving around learning more about operating a car on mountain roads.

Unfortunately, while this dirt-encrusted adventure *sounded* awesome, especially for someone who was a tom-boy for most of her life, the reality was dominated by some severe car sickness; I was nauseous the entire time. Danielle took us to a course that he had set up in the mountains near Pachon. Among other things, we practiced slalom and spun the car out to get a feel for how to regain control if the back-end of the car loses traction. We also went up and down a fairly step little hill to understand how the vehicle handles. I was ok while I was driving, although I found that I was too nervous to really love the experience. When my fellow trainees started to drive, my stomach began to lurch. By the end I was miserably green.

Once we stopped for “lunch” (a cup of coke for me and a few bites of pasta) I did get to take some shots of the dome against a back-drop of snowy mountains I confessed to Danielle that I'd had better days and I think he felt bad that I wasn’t enjoying myself much. He stopped several times to let me get out, have some fresh air and take marvelous pictures of the mountainsides in bloom. So after all the drama, I did end up with a pretty memorable day.

Vicuña y Elqui Valley

After a very busy day on Thursday and a fantastic BBQ on Friday at the home of some new friends, we decided to take a relaxing drive into the Elqui Valley.

Just outside of La Serena, the Elqui is a sprawling valley at the foothills of the Andes and one of the most famous wine-producing regions in Northern Chile. The Elqui Valley’s main export is pisco, used for the national drink, the Pisco Sour. Pisco Sour is a mix of lemon or lime juice, sugar, pisco, and egg white in “just the right amounts”. Of course the “right amount” varies widely depending on who you talk to and which part of the country you are in. Since one of our many goals before we leave Chile is to learn how to make a mean Pisco Sour, we decided a trip to the valley (in the name of research, of course) would be useful.

We drove out of town on Route 41 following the path of the Elqui River for 15 minutes. It wasn’t long before we started to see signs of majestic mountains and rolling hills not far in the distance.


After 10 minutes more of driving we began to head a little higher into the Puclaro region. Here the Elqui river is damed by the Puclaro Dam and forms a gigantic reservoir. The dam was built to break the cycle of flood and draught, insuring that the valley would have a controlled water supply. With a consistent water source, the area has turned into a fruit-farmers paradise; papaya, citrus, and (of course) grapes are all grown in the fertile valley.






Besides the fact that the ride in our little red Toyota was a little on the bumpy side, it was one of the most enjoyable rides we’ve taken in quite a while. In Florida, we never went for a Sunday drive; with flat roads and uninspiring scenery there was nothing to see. Here, we ached for a jaunt into the foothills of the Andes. We both thought driving over the mountains into the unknown was a perfect way to spend a day.

Before we even realized it, we were most of the way to Vicuña. Vicuña is a small mountain town, made famous by being the birthplace of Nobel Prize winning poet, Gabriel Mistral. Gabriel Mistral reminds me a bit of Emily Dickinson; while not nearly as isolated, she wrote about many human conditions that she herself never experienced (marriage, children, etc). Whatever your thoughts on her work, Mistral is a national hero, and Vicuña is her birthplace. The Gabriel Mistral museum is there and the town has prospered as a tourist attraction. David and I decided that we would turn off the road and visit since our drive had taken us so close.


In Vicuña we found what we expected, a quiet little place with gorgeous views of the mountains, a few lovely little shops to catch tourists’ eyes, and a well maintained Plaza de Armas. We parked the car and immediately stumbled upon a Natural Science Museum. It was filled with a small collection of butterflies, beetles, shells, minerals, rocks, and stuffed animals. The displays were old and the floors squeaky; but it was only marginally worse-off than many of the displays at National Parks across the Southwest US. I particularly liked the collection of Morpho butterflies from all over S. America, although it was disheartening to find that not one was a native of Chile. David was fascinated by the iridescent beetles.

After exploring the museum for a bit and walking by a number of street vendors, we decided to get a snack before heading home. We had heard bad things about Chilean ice-cream (our friend James told us it melted into puddles of oil, which did not sound appetizing), but we saw a small place that claimed to be “Artisanal” so we decided to take a chance. We paid 500 pesos or about $1 for a fairly large scope of ice cream that turned out to be some of the best we’ve ever had. I got pistachio while David had papaya. Both were more akin to sorbet or sherbet than ice cream with less dairy and more flavor.




So our Sunday drive was a huge success. We want to head back soon to visit the Mistral museum, browse the shops of local artisans, and try a different flavor of ice cream!

Dieciocho Parte Dos

After a day of eating and shopping with our friend Beth at the Pampilla in Coquimbo, a walk through a gorgeous Japanese garden, and a tour of downtown La Serena, David and I returned to our Apart-Hotel for what we thought would be a quiet evening. It was an absolutely gorgeous day though, one of the sunniest we’d had in a week, and I really wanted to take a nice stroll on the beach. So after grabbing some jackets, we walked down to the “boardwalk”.

What we saw surprised us. Now that I think back on it, I’m not sure why. What do people in the U.S. do on their Independence Day? Go to the beach, of course! The fact that it is just rounding on Spring here did not stop Chileans from enjoying the seashore. But instead of sunbathing and swimming, they’ve taken to a different Independence Day pastime - kite flying. The beach was covered with hundreds of families all up and down the shoreline with beautiful kites. I was really excited; David and I love flying kites, but the only significant breezes in Gainesville usually came with names (Frances, Jeanne, etc.) and generally flying a kite in a hurricane will win you a Darwin Award.




Sadly, our really awesome, high quality-kite is packed away in a windless crate on a boat. We had to settle with shelling out $4 for a really crappy, albeit functional, kite. We found a little spot on the beach and started our kite flying. Everything was going fine until we ran out of string and belatedly realized that the end was not attached to anything. This resulted in David diving all over the beach after a loose kite, while I collapsed on the sand laughing; not really helpful I know, but it was a little ridiculous at the time.

So, we flew our kite on the beach until the sun went down. I got some amazing pictures of the David and the sunset before it was time to pack our little kite away for another day.





Being that this is our blog, I’m sure you can guess what comes next. Food! After a lovely evening on the beach and a full day exploring our surroundings we found ourselves quite hungry. I wasn’t willing to tear myself away from the ocean to go home and eat at our house, so we decided to find a place to eat on the beach. After walking around for quite a bit, we formulated a plan: get empanadas to-go from a nearby restaurant and make a picnic on the beach.

This was a ridiculously good idea. Imagine if you will eating hot, crispy handmade empanadas filled with a variety of fresh ingredients in front of crashing waves on a cold Spring night. The empanadas were made to order, and we tried a crazy collection of fillings including clam, goat cheese, chorizo and mushroom, artichoke and bacon, and good old ham and cheese. We found a table at an empty ice cream restaurant that faced the ocean and had a magnificent dinner. We also made friends with one of the one million dogs roaming around La Serena; this one (surprisingly) belonged to someone and so, didn’t get any treats from us. This didn’t stop him from laying out our feet for 45 minutes hoping we would drop something. Unfortunately for him, these empanadas were so good, even if we had dropped a bit, I think he would have had to fight David for the recovery.

So after a long day of Fairs, gardens, plazas, kite-flying, and eating we finally called it a day. Looking back on it, I can say that this was the type of holiday that only a German tourist plans (you know, Grand Canyon on Wednesday, Yellowstone on Thursday, Disney World on Friday) We were in over our heads all day, but managed to keep ourselves above water anyway; it may have been the pork we had for lunch, the company of a good friend, the graciousness of the Chilean people or all of the above that kept us going.