25.10.15 / La Serena, Chile

Amongst the many beauties of the places I get to visit for the deep dark pale blue-project, I find their utter remoteness simply stunning. I arrived in La Serena yesterday after pretty much three straight days on the road. A 20-hour trip to Santiago, and then an 8-hour bus „ride“ – by the way, an image from the bus-station in Santiago to start with! – the next day to get to La Serena. Traveling by bus is quite remarkable here – extremely popular and rather comfortable -, as there is hardly a railway-system. The bus-services of the two big companies cover the entire country from the deserts of the very North all the way down to tierra del fuego in the South (Chile stretches over 4200 kilometers). Tomorrow I will continue my journey into Valle Elqui, where Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is located – about 80 kilometers east of here at an altitude of 2200 meters.