Desert Snow

After a rest shift in Santiago, I went up to the desert again for working. As usual, I fly to Antofagasta and from there a bus takes us to Paranal. As the trip starts very early in the morning, people normally sleep in the plane and in the bus. I am no different, the excitement times are already gone and the desert views don't change that much. I woke up in the middle of the trip, I felt cold and cursed the driver for turning off the heating. Suddenly, I look through a breach in the bus curtains and see something odd, white stripes in a normally brown landscape. As I open the curtains, I realize that the desert was sprinkled with snow! It was hard to believe, the so-called driest desert in the world hit by frozen water, but it was there to see. The hills were covered in white, while the area closer to the road had still some stripes of snow. The Andean range in the background was completely white in a beautifully surreal scenery. Rain and snow in the desert are phenomena that happen once every ten years or so! As we approached the observatory, the snow disappeared and only some spots on the higher altitudes could be seen. However, when we reached the gate and looked up to cerro Paranal, where the telescopes stand, there was a surprisingly white hill, sprinkled with snow and still covered in clouds! It had snowed the night before, apparently the weather changed completely in half an hour, as usually happens. In that morning a lot of the snow had already melted, it was apparently totally covered in snow. The telescopes were not opened for a couple of nights, until all water dried, and the road up to the telescopes was also closed that morning due to security reasons. In Antofagasta, it apparently rained heavily for a while as well, which left a big mess, since the desert cities are not prepared for rain. It never rains... until it rains!