Fotos del Norte

Huge picture post, as promised. Stay tuned for a detailed account of yesterday's ridiculous biking/hitchhiking/snow adventure.

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Gateway to the North.

Dramatic back-to-back camera pose at the VLT.

The VLT as seen from below.

You haven't seen a telescope enclosure until you've visited Paranal.

Lifting a "Hollywood rock" from Quantum of Solace. Or Bijan is much stronger than he looks.

Haunted train station. I wish.

The Milky Way from San Pedro. See tree in lower right for scale. Photo courtesy of Joey Brink.

A praying dinosaur, according to Professor Maza. Somehow I doubt the native people knew about dinosaurs.

Sand dune and light circles for dramatic effect.

Llama.

Dan searching for brine shrimp (a.k.a. Artemia salina) (a.k.a. sea monkeys).

Picturesque. But much much much colder than it looks.

Alpaca wool loom at an artisan shop in San Pedro.

Warning: children here lose their balls easily.

I guess obscene graffiti is pretty ubiquitous after all.

Silhouette of the 4 m telescope at Cerro Tololo. And a smiley moon.

Spelling out "Yale" in front of the Yale telescope. Aren't we clever?

Long exposure photography of the sky from inside a dome. Photo courtesy of Joey Brink (again).