Figured since I’m about to come home from my fourth trip to Chile, I should post pictures from the last one.

Not gonna lie, the most exciting that happened to me when I traveled to La Serena in March was finding a grocery store that I LOVE. And not just because there’s an adorable elephant outside.

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Posing outside the grocery store like a total gringa

Seriously, this grocery store is not overwhelmingly ginormous like the other one, but it has a solid international section that makes this gringa so, so happy (Pretzel crisps! Hummus! McCormick taco seasoning! Soy sauce! Bonne maman jam!).

Since we were there for two weeks, my coworkers and I spent some time over the weekend exploring around Coquimbo, the port town right next to La Serena. I found some rocks to scramble on and most definitely didn’t do anything remotely dangerous on a business trip. Also, while I was driving us back from Coquimbo, my coworker insisted on navigating via the map in the Pokemon Go app so he could catch pokemon on the way, which turns out is NOT ACCURATE. We might or might not have started going the wrong way down a one-way street and caused a bit of a ruckus. Just a little one though.

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Fuerte (Fort) Coquimbo
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Fun fact: castellated is a word and it’s that castle-tower shape
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Don’t tell the LSST safety officer

As per usual, the weekdays were spent at the observatory doing important things like stargazing and birdwatching and bunny-chasing and watching the sunset from various locations.

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Just two guys trying to get the perfect shot
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Gemini and SOAR telescopes in the background
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The light gets suuuuper pretty at sunset
Condor
CONDOR! The Chilean ones have a wingspan ~10 ft (bigger than California Condors)
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He really didn’t wan’t to say hi for some reason. I promise we’re friendly
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Zorro just after sunset

We also did some real work while we were there, mostly installing nitrogen lines (i.e. cutting a shitton of stainless steel pipe and torquing a million compression fittings).

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We spent a LOT of time in this scissor lift over the course of the two weeks
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Final inspection of the lines. And then LOTS of cleanup
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Best shot of the trip, courtesy of my coworker. Successful trip all around!
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Outtakes, because who doesn’t love a good blooper reel