GlobeGators: Riding ¨Tornado¨ in the Chilean desert and Seeing Stars

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile -- I admit I wasn´t keen on the idea at first. Riding horses in the Chilean desert outside this pueblo just didn´t sound that interesting. It was not that I was afraid. I spent five years riding horses as a teen, but I just thought that chapter of my life was best left to the past. But Meghan wanted to give it a try, so I relented. Our cowboy guide gave me a dusty brown horse named Tornado and I jumped aboard.

Our first bit of business was transversing the dusty roads of San Pedro de Atacama to get to the desert - a simple enough proposition if your horse is sane. My first inkling of trouble was when a bicyclist came riding by at normal speed. Tornado gave a little jump, his head popping up with a jolt. I took up my reins and eased him down, but this was not a good sign. Next came a truck and he jumped again, this time with a greater jerk, requiring me to pull back on the reins with greater force. However, the ¨the perfect storm¨ for Tornado came as we were nearly out of the pueblo when a loud garbage truck and a bicyclist came down the dusty road in tandem. Tornado gave a kick and started to break, then jumped up and headed for a clay brick wall. He was just about ready to go hog wild. I tightened the reins and my legs around the beast and ordered him to slow as I pulled back on the reins. Eventually, he relaxed and all was well.

My guide said in Spanish that Tornado wasn´t used to truck noise. The obvious question, which remained unasked, is why Tornado was allowed on the streets if this was the case. I mean, I was fine. As a teen, I was bucked off horses at least three times, including an incident in which I broke my left hand. Those situations were my fault, of course. I was young, nervous and inexperienced then. When a horse is in trouble, scared, you must use a firm hand and a strong voice--there is no time to be afraid. So, that´s what I did with Tornado. But I just wonder about the tourist who gets Tornado next, the rider who has been on a horse once or twice before. Look out! (By the way, Meghan´s horse was about as tranquil as the Red Sea.)

Despite all that, the horse ride through the desert was just amazing. It also rekindled my love of horseback riding. So thanks Meghan for urging me back on that horse!

Also, Meghan and I went to an observatory outside the pueblo at night for a star tour. The desert outside San Pedro de Atacama is one of the world´s clearest places to see the southern hemisphere of stars. We could see the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, the closest star to the Earth - Alpha Centauri, the constellation Leo, and the planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. Our guide was Alain Maury, a astrological engineer from France. He said looking up into the sky, the naked eye can see about 3,000 stars, but of course we all know there are many more. Maury´s love of the night sky was infectious and despite the bitter cold we spent an hour outside jumping from telescope to telescope looking at celestial bodies and nebulae. (He even used our cameras to take pictures of Saturn through a telescope, see below) This area is so good for star gazing that multiple countries, including the United States, are heavily funding research here into far-flung galaxies, to the edge of the universe. Pretty cool!