El Núcleo Magnético

By day, Elqui Valley is fragrant with juicy fruits, a picturesque landscape for the eyes to feast upon. Yet one might question: why this location? If it weren't for man's investment in irrigation channels across and up the mountainsides, nature would be left to run its dry, arid course. I am not quite sure of the correct answer but I have a rough idea.

One thing is clear with the main produce, grapes - if you want to enhance their sweet flavour simply cultivate them in a place where the sun penetrates through their skin almost everyday of the year and where the night's coolness locks in the sugar, making sure it doesn't turn stale. And what better place then one of earth’s magnetic cores, Elqui Valley.

By night, however, attention is passed from land to nature's other beauty: the sky. Elqui Valley has one of the best skies around, clear sunny days with no pollution in sight and hence clear, cloudless nights. Yes, after the bright sun goes to sleep for the day the sky becomes ablaze with an array of dazzling stars, as if someone turned on the night light. Because of this, we made sure to visit Observatorio Cerro Mamalluca.

A small van picked us up from Vicuña and we drove through the pitch darkness up the hillside. At the observatory, one of many that is situated amongst the lower hills of the valley, we were met by our very passionate guide for the evening. We discovered our galaxy and beyond in great detail on film and learnt how little our sun really is in comparsion to other suns in other galaxies. Outside, we watched Venus slowing sink below the horizon along with the sun. We took turns following the light of our guide’s torch to peer through a telescope, spotting the Southern Cross or the constellations, comparing the brightest star Sirius with the closest star, Alfa Centauri.

Inside the observatory, a tourist sized observatory that is, we used the larger telescope to further investigate the stars. We saw Jupiter and its moons; Nebula and star clusters. Inside, no one could take photographs because the flash could potentially blind any unsuspecting observer peering into a telescope lens outside. It was 1:30 am by the time we finished, although the curiosity as to where our universe leads onto still continues.