3. Milky Way
Day 138
I am at San Pedro de Atacama. As the name says, it is in the middle of Atacama desert. It is the driest desert on the planet besides the polar regions. Actually, only dryer place on earth is Antarctica and I will be here for 18 days. There are many reason why I chose this place. This was a must visit place on this trip right from the beginning. The main reason is a photography. Because this is a desert with virtually no humidity, there is no moisture in the air. Or very little. The humidity here gets down to 4%. This is great news when you want to take pictures of night skies. Also, the absence of any big towns means there is virtually no light pollution as well. Together with high altitudes around here makes this place ideal for astronomers and photographers alike. There are dozens of telescopes do it the desert around here. All leading companies and countries interested in astronomy have their sites around here. There is best equipment for astronomy money can buy over here. And I want to take some pictures of night skies with Milky Way and stars. I am caring my best camera lens just for this purpose. I hope it will reach the desire result.
Another reason is, there are many beautiful spots around here. There are many lagoons, full of pink flamingos and other wildlife, which you wouldn't expect in the desert. There are llamas, vicunas, alpacas, desert foxes, and many birds. The landscape and views around here are a paradise for photographers. I expect to take many hundreds of pictures here. There are also many places here with beautiful rock and sand formations. Hot springs as well as many geysers can be found around this place.
Also, I want to take a break and set up a base I can ride from. It is nice to ride my bike without all my gear hanging from it and explore the surrounding places. I will be here for the holidays or at least for Christmas. There will be another riders I know arriving here next week so I will know some people here. So these are the reasons I chose to stay in the middle of the desert.
There are only three main roads going from San Pedro. One directly east towards Argentina, second is south east going towards Argentina as well but the border crossing there is only for the locals. The third road is the road I came from.
I am not wasting any time and set up for a ride towards East. I have no destination this is just a exploration ride to see what I can find. San Pedro is an altitude of 2400 m. There is a long and steep road climbing up to 4800 m in 40 km, that's the road I could be riding on today.
My gas tank is full because you never know where you can end up and there is only one gas station within 150 km of any direction. The road number 27 towards east starts climbing right away. It is an awesome sight. The road goes pretty much straight up and you are climbing very steeply. It is a fairly new road. I think it was completed only about 20 years ago. It was a joint project between Argentina and Chile. There is no town, settlement, houses, or any other services until you reach Argentina. After you reach the top at 4800 m you pretty much stay above 4600 m altitude all the way to Argentinian border. The high altitude is a very serious problem because you reach altitude of the Everest Basecamp in less than 20 minutes. No time for acclimatization. As you can climb up, you can see the valley behind you, which is so huge that you cannot see the end on the other side. You get to the top and there are mountain peaks everywhere. The views are incredible. The sky at this altitude is dark blue with no pollution. The temperature cools down quite a bit to about 12° and that's in the middle of the day. It gets bellow 0° at night. I reached the top, and I am at awe with all those incredible views. I stop at every turn. There are an incredible views to take pictures of. Actually, I do have a destination today. There is a dirt road which leaves the main highway, actually the only highway and leads to even higher elevation to a huge plateau where some of those observatories are set. I have it marked on my GPS so I find it easily. I get on the dirt road which is in pretty bad shape so I have to stand up in my pegs and actually work to ride. Immediately I can feel the effect of this altitude. I left 4800 m and climbing up steeply. When I was researching this place, I was looking at the satellite images and I couldn't see any gates or barriers, which would restrict my access to the place. There is a road to this place from the other side about 100 km away which has much more gradual grade but there is a huge gate down by the main road unfortunately. After a few kilometers, I get to a huge gate which is locked. There are rocks on the side of the gate and, then there's a field with deep sand, basically making it impossible for me to continue further. It is little bit disappointing, but on the other hand, the high altitude makes a pretty hard workout with any physical activities. That includes getting on or off my bike. I turn around and ride back to the road then ride back towards the town. I take many more pictures. At one point I can see that I can take much better pictures if I just ride a little bit off road. I tried at one place and I return after a few hundred meters. The ground was too soft and too rocky for my bike. But I find another place which was less sandy and more rocky and I goes towards Bolivia, which is only a few kilometres away. The view from this place is absolutely amazing. I stop and take many pictures from here. They turned out absolutely beautifully, they will be in my photo section. Some of them will definitely make it to my upcoming picture book.
One of the goals for today’s ride is to get get to use used to the altitude. Spending a few hours above 4800 m should do the trick. With a few hundred pictures in my camera, it is time to head down to the city. It is a 43 km descent. A beautiful road in excellent condition. Also very good and safe for drivers. There are runaway lanes every few kilometers. Without them there would be many more truck carcasses along the road. And as fast as I came up, I came down as well. Main reason for today's exploratory ride is to find some locations to shoot from the night skies. And there are plenty to choose from. I find one close to the town, so I will return here just before the sunset.
I returned to this place few hours later. It is off the highway and into the desert with an unobstructed view the sky in front of me. I have an application on my iPhone, which tells me when and where I can see the Milky Way so I don't have to waste the time or guess where it might appear on a night sky. I get to my place sit down and wait for the sunset. I only want to take some test pictures today. I have never used my special lens in the night like this. I will try different settings so the next time it will be a much faster photoshoot. The best time to view the Milky Way today is past 3 o'clock in the morning. Well, I don't plan to wait that long, I just want to test the equipment and the settings. The sun sets quickly in the desert. It is very dark very quickly. The stars are everywhere now. I set my tripod and my camera and wait for Milky Way to show up. Looking at the skies there is no air traffic, there are no airplanes. There are no satellites. Only the stars. Absolutely breathtaking. It is time to take some pictures. I am taking one picture after another with different settings to test which one is the best. It is hard to see the results on the small screen on my camera so I will have to see the results back in my room. But it appears on the small screen that there are not that many stars visible, even though the sky is full of them. But I decide to go home. Getting back to the main road through the desert in the middle of the night with zero external lights is another thing. I get to the road and on the spur of the moment instead to the left which goes to the town, I turned right, going uphill. I will try to get 1000 m higher and takes some pictures from there to see if there is any difference. It is cold now. The temperature is 8°. I go a few kilometres uphill and find another place and take another set of pictures. I am very eager to see the results.
With another hundreds of pictures in my camera, I head home. It is 2 o'clock in the morning now and I am tired. It has been a long day, but I cannot help to download the pictures from my camera right away. When I see the first picture on my laptops screen, I am absolutely amazed. There are way more stars visible on a picture than I saw with my naked eyes. Literally the picture is dotted with hundreds and hundreds of stars. Good, the camera and the setting works so I can go to sleep now. The whole reason of coming here is actually paying off. It has been a long and interesting day and I'm going to bed a very happy camper.