8. Party in The Desert
Day 148
I woke up today in the morning with the sound of my alarm. This is quite unusual as I normally am up way before sunrise. The plan was to go to see some lagoons in the neighbourhood. But I didn't feel like getting out of bed because it was nice and cool in the morning. I turned around on the other side and pretended the morning is not happening.
I woke up a few hours later, feeling guilty that I haven't done anything because I am lazy. So I got on my bike and went out into the desert looking for location to take pictures of star trails in the night. There is one particular spot I had in mind. It is called the Magic Bus. It is about 30 km in the desert. It is a carcass of an actual bus. The bus was used by workers mining salt which is plentiful pretty much anywhere around San Pedro. The bus was working hard until one day engine gave out. It was too expensive to repair it so they left it in the desert. The workers used it as a sun shelter during the middle of the day. The mining has stopped a long time ago, but the bus still stands there. It is a popular spot for stargazing. There are hills all around this plateau at night. There is no external lights except the stars and the planets. Landscape around is like a moon scape. There is no living organism out there. Not even one blade of grass. There are layers of salt under thin layer of sand and soil. There are literally mountains made out of salt. That salt is not commercially viable because it is very low on iodine.
Road there takes you about 15 km of the main highway into the desert. It is a loose gravel track. I went there right after lunch. On the way in I met two guys from Brazil on their bikes who were riding out of there. We chatted for a little bit, which was interesting as they didn't speak almost any English and my Portuguese is non-existent. But somehow we got our points across. After a bit we continued on our way.
Few kilometres later I was standing in front of the bus. It was very surreal site is the bus looked completely out of place. There are two other trucks parked over there, set up for overnight camping. I parked my bike right beside them and went over to introduce myself. Both trucks were from Brazil. In one track there was a young couple, Pedro and Leticia with their border collie. Pedro speaks very good English and that made the conversation way easier.
Pedro told me story about his godfather. He immigrated from Brazil to Canada at a young age. In his 20s he had to leave Canada because of some immigration issues. So he decided to leave Edmonton and ride his horses all the way to Brazil, which he did. Later he returned and completed the portion between Alaska and Edmonton. After he got to Brazil, he decided to continue all the way down to Patagonia. In the end, he reached Ushuaia which is southernmost city in South America. And that is my destination as well. So when you think the trip I'm doing is unusual or hard or difficult, just imagine how it must have been doing the same route on horseback. His grandfather became sort of a celebrity and wrote several books about his trip and there's a movie and a documentary about his strip as well. I think it is heckuva story and I will try to get my hands on those books and I'll find those documentaries.
The location over there was perfect for night photography so I have decided to go back to the town have dinner, pack my camping gear, grab a few bottles of wine and beer and return for the night. That is exactly what I did and I returned to the bus way before sundown.
We went for a hike into the Hills above us. Totally dry and absent of any living organism. Return back and met those two other Brazilians I met on my first trip over here. So there were six Brazilians and myself. I set up a hammock I borrowed from Pedro in the bus. There was a half moon high in the skies. The illumination was so strong we didn't need any lights to walk around. Unfortunately, that was not that good timing for the night photography. I had to wait long into the night until the moon disappeared beyond the horizon. I set up my camera for a Time-lapse photography and let it do its thing. Meantime we opened a few bottles of wine. They cook spaghetti for dinner for everybody. The boombox starts playing and the party was on. More bottles of wine and beer appeared and we were having a very good time. It was all very surreal. We are looking at the stars and the moon while listening to Pink Floyd, Darkside of the moon album in the desert. At some point a minivan with a dozen tourists showed up for their astronomy tour. As it happen, the tourists where all Brazilians. You can imagine it's got pretty loud. Everybody was having good time. Meantime, my first set off time lapse photos was finished with very acceptable results. I took some pictures of Milky Way in the night and then set up my camera for another time lapse set. At this point, it was past midnight and the moon went to see the other side of the Earth. I set up my camera and I went to sleep in the bus. I didn't feel too comfortable in the hammock for some reason and I couldn't sleep at all. I had my alarm set for the time when my camera is gonna be finished, but I got up way before that and just walk around looking at the empty place below, and a very busy sky above full of stars and planets. I got all my shots, and at this point it started to get brighter on horizon. I tried to sleep again, but with the same results as previously. I was just lying there waiting for the sun to come up to warm us up. Pretty cold, the temperature was 5°. As soon as the sun appears, you could see the temperature rise in front of your eyes. I packed my camera gear which I left in the middle of the plateau. I was hoping that no late astronomy geeks gonna run over my tripod and my camera. I was tired. I packed my gear, said goodbye to everybody, and rode back to the town. I got back to my hotel, right in time for breakfast. Good timing. Dead tired I went to bed and I slept for a couple of hours.
I got up and started to download the pictures from my camera. I edited my first set of time lapse pictures and it came out really well. Then I looked at my set and when I processed it it was a big disappointment. It was all way too over exposed. Without being too technical, I dialled in the value for the sensor sensitivity way too high. Instead of nominal value of 500 I dialled in 5000. Oops. I blamed it on cheap Chilean wine. Too bad because it was 150 pictures wasted and an opportunity gone. Oh well.
And this was my magical mystery tour. Good morning.