Taking flight: parrots and planes.

Today consisted of driving down the mountain to La Serena's airport. The drive down was spectacular. We drove through a layer of clouds, which I thought was going to be awesome until I realized it was just like fog. In fact, it was the same thing as fog...just higher.

During the drive some parrots flew over the valley. By the quantity, it seemed as though it was a whole flock. They were fantastic in flight. I have never seen such beautifully colored birds in the wild. Unfortunately, I could not get a picture.

In La Serena, there is no radar at the airport, so planes can't land or take off in the fog. Today there was no low-lying fog so the plane could fly out. This hasn't been happening too much in the last few weeks.

After getting to the hotel in Santiago, dinner was had right down the street. The food here in Chile is incredible and ridiculously cheap. I restrict that to the food I've had outside of the observatory. Dinner tonight consisted of chicken stuffed with asparagus and almonds on top of an avocado rizzotto. I'm not even going to try to describe the flavors. I also had pisco sours and strawberries in hazelnut liquor for dessert. It was just such a pleasant meal.